In These Tiled Halls
by lanternheart
Summary: Our beloved pets are in Neoschool. So how do they fit in? Who is the cheerleader, and who is the rebel? Who is the brains and who is the brawn? And why did Belle become evil? Written with Echos in my head.
1. Introduction

There is a place that every Neopian dreads going to. It means stress and frustration and even sadness. Some would even describe it as torture. So what is this place anyway? One word.

_Neoschool._

At least that's what 14 year old Belle thinks as she dashes down the halls, hoping desperately to not be late again. As her teacher often embarrasses her if she is. "Hurry up!" a 14 year old Shadow called down the hall, waving an arm wildly, and almost hitting Dusty in the face. "Oh! Sorry Dusty!"

Dusty grumbles before resuming her cheerful nature, seeing one of her sisters nearby. "Hey, Sun!"

Sun briefly waved. "What's wrong, Sun?" asked Dusty, worried.

Sun looked like a mess. "Sh-She's coming!" Sun choked out, terrified. Dusty's eyes widened as she realized what Sun was talking about...

The school doors crashed open. The school bad girl was here.

Lahetta.

The halls effectively went quiet as she strolled down the corridor, right through the crowd of people. Only one person didn't seem fazed by her.

Will was a strange girl that most kept away from. It wasn't because of her looks; In fact, Will was quite pretty. It was how she acted around other people. Only her sisters, Shadow and Fire, were capable of dealing with Will's constant sarcasm and threats.

Only a few people had tried to stop Lahetta's constant terror of the school, but their only reward was a black eye and a hospital visit.

As Lahetta was punching the life out of a random kid, Belle strode up to her. "Lahetta, can you just sto-" Lahetta let the kid drop to the floor as she spun around to face Belle. The kid slipped away and ran as fast as he could.

"What's wrong, Belle?" Lahetta asked with a menacing smirk. "Too soft to see someone else being hurt?"

Belle snarled, her protective nature getting the better of her. "Why must you freaking hurt people, Lahetta? You used to be a good person."

Lahetta smirked. "What makes me a bad person?"

"Beating people up is a good starting point," said a dry voice behind the both of them. Will was retying her ponytail before looking looking at Lahetta with pale grey eyes.

Lahetta whipped around, "Oh, if it isn't missy Will. Ready for another beating, freak?"

Will blinked once, then grinned. She chuckled softly before laughing louder and louder. She threw back her head and shook with laughter, wiping her eyes. "If you only knew," she said gleefully.

Lahetta was genuinely confused. "What?"

Belle was long past uncomfortable, she was upset, freaked out, worried, and realizing they should be in class by now.

Shadow went over to her friend, sister and the mean girl. Belle and Shadow started to inch away.

Will flicked her fringe out of her eyes. "You'll figure it out eventually," she replied, heading to the classroom. "Oh, and by the way, your fly is down," Will called out over her shoulder.

Lahetta looked down, realization. "No it's no- Ugh, I swear she's even more cruel than me." She remembered her sisters presence. "Get outta here, Belle. You're late enough already."

Belle quickly slipped away, she remembered what happened when she showed up late. Groaning, she ran towards her next class.

The classroom was already packed. Belle slid into her seat in between Shadow and Alivia, who was doodling little hearts on her notebook. In the front of the room, Fire was explaining one of the homework problems to Kelly.

Kelly was not the brightest tool when it came to education, "But it doesn't make sense!" she protested.

Lahetta was listening outside the door, filing her nails, she chuckled, saying to herself. "Kelly was never all that bright."

Fire's patience was running thin. In school, she seemed to be the jack of all trades: a good student, cheerleader and friendly. But her firey attitude and short temper landed her in trouble with both students and teachers on many occasions. "Look Kelly, it's math. We just want to figure out what X is, and to do that, we need to isolate it on one side of the equation..." As Fire continued her explanation, Alsa and Sammi were handing out papers to everyone.

The Yellow Shoyru sighed. _Belle to the rescue again_. She raised her hand, the teacher called on her "Yes, Belle?" Belle stood up, and went next to Kelly. "You see Kelly, when you look at this math equation at a different angle..."

Fire, deciding that Belle had everything under control, looked down at the papers that were passed out.

_Party at the Rainbow Pool this Saturday at 9:00pm! The dress code is casual, and food will be provided. RSVP by tomorrow!_

Alivia had gotten a text message from Cute, even though they were sitting two desks away from each other. Alivia giggled and typed back a response. Shadow sighed and looked out the window. The large expanse of sky looking back down at her seemed more appealing than the lesson being taught.

"GIRLS!" the teacher snapped. "Alivia and Cute, stop texting! Shadow, pay attention! Lahetta, get in class!"

The class was entirely female, since a few years ago the principal had decided that the girls and boys learned in different ways at different rates, and had separated the classes by gender. Though this seemed sexist at first, it had actually worked out quite well, and the decision stuck. Tawni, a known tomboy, was the closest thing they had to a male in that class.

Fire sighed. "I wish Will was here," she muttered under her breath. Twelve year old Will was in the grade below them.

Tawni sighed, she was often the one who was responsible for Lahetta, when Belle was busy. Belle was still trying to explain the math equation to Kelly, "C'mon, Kelly. It's just a simple math equation." Tawni walked out the door, surprisingly with no protest from the teacher. _Time to go get Lahetta_, she thought.

Lahetta was leaning against her locker, she pushed a few strands of blonde and brown hair out of her face. Tawni shoved her hands into the pockets of her checkered hoodie, feeling a bit nervous. There were times when even Belle couldn't keep Lahetta under control.

"Lahetta."

The Acara gave up trying to push her hair out of her face and blew upward, causing the hair to float up gently before landing to the side. "Trying to get me back in class, Tawni? I thought that was Belle's job."

Tawni sighed, "Kelly was called for a math equation-"

"Again?"

"Yep."

"So, how exactly-"

"Blackmail, Lahetta."

"What could you possibly have on me?"

Tawni took a lighter out of her pocket and held it up so it caught the light. Lahetta's eyes widened and she reached out impulsively for it. Tawni calmly moved it out her reach.

"How did you get that?" Lahetta screeched.

Tawni smirked. "I have my connections. Now, if you show good attendance for a month, nobody will know all your secrets."

"You wouldn't dare-"

"We both know that I would, Lahetta."

"You're a bitch, you know?"

"I'm aware. So, is that a yes?"

Lahetta was fuming. Tawni stood calmly by, not daring to show any sign of fear. If Lahetta so much as smelled fear on another person, she couldn't be beat.

Lahetta finally flipped Tawni off and stalked over to the classroom. Tawni made a small half-smile and followed her inside.

"I think I get it now!" Kelly was saying as they entered.

Belle sighed, relieved. "That's great, Kelly." Belle quickly dashed to her seat.

"It's nice to see that you finally joined us, miss." Lahetta and the teacher glared at each other, neither backing down.

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" V started chanting at the back of the classroom. V was the school rebel.

The teacher was torn; She couldn't back down from Lahetta, but V was really getting on her nerves.

Cloud, sensing her teacher's distress, gently reached over to V. "V? I don't think that a fight in the classroom is the best idea."

V rolled her eyes. "C'mon, Cloud. Don't you wanna see anything interesting in your life?"

Lahetta grinned. "Aw. Is the teacher so dull that she can't make a move?"

The teacher was about to reply when Cloud spoke up. "Listen! This isn't the way the class should be taught! We should all be working together so we can all learn and grow! Are you all proud of the way you're acting?" Obviously upset, Cloud sat back down, and Lahetta and the teacher both looked away from each other.

Lahetta and V sat back down.

It was an unspoken rule: If the school sweetheart Cloud ever got upset enough to yell, everyone stopped what they were doing. Cloud, however, didn't seem to notice that she had this power over the others.

A couple of minutes later, the fire alarm sounded. Almost everybody was screaming, except V, who was yelling "Awesome!"

Fire clutched her head and groaned. It was only a matter of time before the students all blamed her for it. Just like the last time, and the time before that. And the time before that...

"Fire! Come on!" Shadow was tugging her arm with Belle at her side. Fire and Belle weren't friends, exactly, more like acquaintances by association.

Every student of every grade was running outside the building, about half of them screaming their lungs out.

Gracie, the school darling, walked out slowly, practically unaware of the fire in the building.

Gracie was accompanied by her sister Pie, who looked immensely worried. "Do you think everyone's okay?" she asked nervously.

"Mmm-hmm." Gracie wasn't paying attention.

"Where's Will?" Pie asked suddenly. Gracie, Pie and Will were all in the same grade.

Elva ran through every hall, every room, even every bathroom, looking for Will. She couldn't find her anywhere, it worried her.

Chewing nervously on her hair, Elva looked back in the classroom. No sign of Will. The cafeteria and schoolyard were busts too. On her way back out, she ran into a fire-painted Usul.

"Where's Will?" she demanded.

"I don't know!" Elva said in a panic. "I looked everywhere on this side of the school!"

The Usul's face darkened. "Knowing Will, she'll be going toward the flames. C'mon!" she said to the green Zafara.

V followed Fire.

Belle looked back, curiousity practicially eating her up, she sighed. "Hey, guys! Wait for me!" She ran to catch up with them.

The group slipped unseen past teachers herding the younger kids out and went toward the fire's source: the science lab.

Inside, Will was sitting cross-legged beside the inferno, holding her hands up to feel the warmth.

"Will!" Fire exclaimed as she ran over to her sister.

"Isn't it, like, boiling over there?" Elva asked the others, who were wondering the same thing.

"Oh, hey guys. Isn't it cool?" Will asked as she pointed at the flames eating up the walls.

Fire, even though she was a bit of a pyro, knew that 'yeah, totally!' wasn't the best answer at this time. "C'mon Will, the others are looking for you."

Lahetta slipped out silently, unseen.

A voice buzzed out of the loudspeaker, "Everyone, evacuate immediately!"

"Huh, I wonder what that's about..." V said aloud, curiously.

Will shrugged. "The building's going to collapse soon," she said, entirely serious yet strangely calm.

Fire jumped. "Let's get out of here!" she cried, pulling Will along with her.

Belle ran, seeing Lahetta as she passed. "Hey, what are you doing here? Didn't you hear to evacuate?"

Lahetta merely smirked, and held up her lighter. Noticing Belle's shocked expression, she explained. "While you have connections, I have my ways. Now, let's get outta here, sis."

"Lahetta, I don't think you understand, the building's going to collapse!" Belle told her, trying to make her see sense.

Lahetta rolled her eyes, and ran out.

Smoke was everywhere, stinging eyes and making the closet addicts happy.

Teachers and students ran from the smoke and ash, coughing out clouds of black dust as they sped out. The entire school population had made it outside the school just minutes before the left side of the building collapsed upon itself.

Boys and girls mixed together in the crowd as they watched the fire brigade arrive and hose down the rubble.

Cloud coughed violently, but when she managed to calm it down, she said. "Now, who caused this fire?"

All eyes immediately turned to Fire.

Fire sighed._ Here we go again... _

Belle strode to her side. "Hey, just because her name is Fire, doesn't mean she did it."

One teacher spoke up. "So you're saying it was you?"

Belle froze. "...It was all Fire's fault." She walked away.

Fire's famous temper broke free. "You _idiots!_" she shrieked. "How on Neopia could I have started the fire? You saw me, I was in the classroom!" As much as they hated to admit it, Fire had a point. She had been sitting around, just as bored as the other students.

V spoke up. "It's true. But don't _even_ think it was me." She added when she saw them look at her suspiciously.

"Who could it have been?" Sun asked.

Alivia was filing her nails. "Maybe it was some random freak," she said boredly.

Something inside of Belle snapped. "How the _hell_ could you possibly fucking know?" She exploded. "Maybe they had a good reason? Or it was one of the _dumbass_ teachers?" Belle was seething now.

Shadow and Will looked at each other and nodded. Will went over to Fire and calmed her down in a matter of seconds.

Belle was more of a challenge. "Don't let her get to you," Shadow told her. "What does she know? All she does is text and play with her appearance. Don't let her get to you."

Belle was still stubborn about it. "But..." She sighed. "You're right, Shadow."

Lahetta strode up to her. "Well, well, well. Who knew sissy had a dark side?"

Shadow stepped back. This fight, she knew, she shouldn't get involved in.

Belle glared straight at Lahetta, she had changed just now, and hell if she was gonna back down.

She swiftly reached out a hand and grabbed the Acara's neck, shutting off her airway. "What's wrong?" she mocked. "Does sissy have a frog in her throat? Or is it all the ash she breathed in?" Lahetta gasped. "I'm sorry, what was that? You're going to have to speak up louder." Belle's grin was a little more than creepy.

Lily watched in horror, she wanted to go help, but this side of Belle was terrifying.

Lahetta was choking, and as much as Shadow hated getting involved in fights between the two, she knew that she was one of the only people who cold stop this. Not to mention, if Belle killed Lahetta and she did nothing, she would never be able to forgive herself.

"Belle! What's happened to you?"

Belle sent a smirk Shadow's way. "Hey, wanna see this bitch get what's always been coming to her?"

"No!" Shadow exclaimed, horrified at what her friend was doing. "Let her go! She doesn't know when to stop, but choking her won't do any good!"

Belle's fingers relaxed their grip slightly on Lahetta's throat. Shadow calmed down a little. "Belle, you're better than this. I know you are. Don't stoop to her level."

Belle's fingers tightened even more on Lahetta's throat. "She's done worse to us. Beaten us down, embarrassed us, and much more. Why shouldn't I?"

"Because... Because..." Shadow struggled to think of something to say. "Because if you let her go, we could take much worse revenge on her!" she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Belle blinked, and broke out in a grin. "I'll take you up on that, Shaddie." She let go of Lahetta's neck, leaving the cloud Acara gasping on the ground.

Shadow was regretting this already. _What have I done? _

Lahetta coughed violently, struggling to catch her breath. Lily immediately rushed to help her, "Are you okay?" she asked, worried. Lahetta coughed still. "I t-think s-so..." she choked out.

Some kids were whispering and pointing at Lahetta. Others were looking at Belle with shock and awe as the yellow Shoyru walked off with the shadow Xweetok. Some kids even giggled as they saw Lahetta shakily pick herself up.

Lahetta looked around in horror, everybody was staring at her. As soon as she could think clearly, she bolted, away from everyone.

It was not too long later that the students were picked up by their parents and guardians. The girls in Alsa and Sammi's class also asked their parents if they could go to their party that Saturday.

Alivia and Cute were texting, still talking about what happened with Belle and Lahetta. Which included lots of 'OMGs'.

"OI! CRACK GROUP OF SIXTEEN PLUS THREE! GET OVER HERE!"

"Sounds like Echo's picking us up again," Dusty commented.

'Crack group of sixteen' was Echo's nickname for Whateva's sixteen pets. If she ever wanted to include hers, she added the 'plus three'. Sure enough, a tall human female was making her way through the crowd of children and teachers, hair falling in her face and a rifle over her shoulder.

"Where's Whateva?" Sammi asked curiously.

"Yeah, where?" Gracie asked.

Echo shrugged. "Passed out on the couch or something. Everyone here?"

The girls gathered around Echo. The last two to run over were Shadow and Belle, who were originally too far away to hear Echo's call.

The human in question counted the pets. "There's only eighteen of you," she commented.

Belle's eyes glinted. "Oh yeah, Lahetta got sick and went home early." She held back a grin.

The eighteen pets all glanced at each other, except Gracie, who wasn't that bright. "But didn't you-"

Belle interrupted. "Say she should go home? Yes, I did." She glared at Gracie for a moment.

Gracie finally took the hint and fell silent.

Echo stared at all of them strangely for a moment. "Okay then..." She started walking away, seeming to age forward with every step.

Shadow kept close to her guardian. She was still a little spooked from the Belle and Lahetta incident.

Belle had only slightly regretted what had happened, because Shadow wouldn't give eye contact anymore, aside from that she had no other regrets.

When they finally got to the rather large Neohome, it was then that Echo realized she didn't have the key.

"Fuuuuuuck," she groaned. At this point, she had two options: either she crawled through the window that everyone kept open in case this ever happened, or she could shoot the lock out with her rifle.

One was foolproof and had no expenses, the other probably wouldn't work and they'd just end up having to pay to fix the door... Again.

But what was life without a little risk?

Such were the words Echo thought as she loaded her firearm and placed it against the lock.

"Wait! You forgot the-" but the warning from Sammi came too late.

_Click - BOOM_

"Sorry Sammi, what was that?" Echo asked, looking at the smoldering metal on the door. Reaching out a hand, she tried tugging it open. It wouldn't budge. "Crap."

"Can I try?" Will asked. Echo stepped to the side, letting the Wocky pass. Will poked the lock once, and it fell out of its socket. Will then tapped lightly on the door, which swung open with no resistance at all.

"I will never understand you, Will," Echo commented as they all went inside.

Sammi facepalmed. "You know there's a spare key under the mat, right?"

Nobody had a chance to reply as Whateva's loud snoring rang out.

Fire readjusted her bag. "Well, I have lots of homework to do. See you at dinner." With that, she ran up one of the many flights of stairs in the house.

All of them had to share a room, seeing as there were only twelve rooms in the Neohome and three needed to be used as a bathroom, kitchen, and living room.

Lahetta groaned as she sat up, she was laying on her bed in the room she shared with Alsa. Her throat still ached slightly.

"Sounds like the others are back," she mumbled, speaking to no one in particular.

Outside, she heard footsteps walking along to the room across from her's. That was Fire and Will's room. Lahetta didn't want to face the family about what had happened. It was so damn embarrassing!

Downstairs she heard Echo yelling something, and what sounded like Whateva screaming before hearing the sound of a frying pan coming into contact with someone's skull. But this wasn't anything new.

Sammi quietly entered the room, not being noticed as Lahetta was still in deep thought. "Hey." Sammi said softly. "I brought you food." She was holding a plate with a slice of pepperoni pizza.

"What are you doing in my room?" Lahetta grumbled out of habit, taking the pizza and taking a bite. She inwardly sighed, she loved pepperoni.

Sammi frowned. "Well, I didn't think you'd come out for awhile." She moved some hair out of her eyes. "And we can't have you starve, right?" She forced a chuckle. Lahetta grimaced. So this is what Belle choking her had caused: Overrated sympathy and a bruised neck.

"I need to be alone now," Lahetta said bluntly. Sammi blinked once and shuffled away. "O-Okay." Lahetta must have been upset. At any other moment, she would have made fun of Sammi for being such a wuss.

Downstairs, Sammi was greeted by the sight of Echo knocked out on the floor, Whateva watching TV like a zombie with a frying pan dangling from her grip, and Will sprawled out on the floor, staring at the cracks in the ceiling.

Sammi looked at Will. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for pictures," Will responded vaguely.

"Did you find any?"

"Nope."

"I saw a cloud once." Sammi said awkwardly.

"Fascinating." Will rolled over and stared at the wall, signaling that the conversation was over.

Sammi sat down next to Whateva on the couch. "What's on?"

"The Big Bang Theory." Whateva said blankly.

Sammi looked at the screen for a few seconds before deciding it wasn't worth her time. She opted to go to the kitchen instead. She looked around the kitchen for awhile and got some popcorn before heading to her room.

Going up the stairs, she passed by Alsa and Pie, who were whispering about Lahetta and Belle. Sammi knew how much Lahetta was upset about the incident, so she passed them by.

Once she got to her room, she saw Gracie already there, picking through a few science questions.

Sammi sighed. "Need any h-"

"Yes, please!" Gracie interrupted, obviously not understanding it.

The room plan thought out for the pets was a good one: they were placed either with people that balanced out their personalities, or that matched them almost seamlessly. Sammi was a tutor to Gracie, Alsa was the only one meek enough for Lahetta to ignore, Cloud's friendliness worked well with Shadow's thoughtfulness, Tawni and V had the same interests... The list went on and on.

Lahetta was still camping out in her room, barely acknowledging Alsa's presence. She knew that she had to face her family eventually, but she was terrified. Shadow, meanwhile, was still freaked out from Belle's attack, and Cloud was trying her best to comfort her. Belle, on the other hand, who shared a room with Lily, was already planning her extensive revenge on Lahetta.

Belle had already thought of many things, but ruled out most of them since it would definitely kill Lahetta.

And even though she hated her guts, death was not an option.

Echo, meanwhile, had regained consciousness. Rubbing her head and groaning, she turned to her friend sprawled out on the couch. "Nice hit," she said weakly, knowing that since she had been the one to introduce frying pans as acceptable to hit people with, she should have seen it coming.

Not to mention the fact that she was lucky that Whateva didn't sleep with a knife in her grasp like she did.

"Thanks." Whateva mumbled, nearly asleep.

Sammi was still trying to 'help' Gracie. "It doesn't make sense!" Gracie shrieked.

Sammi sighed. "What's wrong this time?"

"Everything!"

Sammi sighed. Sometimes Gracie could be a real pain in the-

"DOES SPAGHETTI FOR DINNER SOUND GOOD TO EVERYONE?" Echo called up the stairs.

"YES!" Everybody yelled in response, except Lahetta, who was still grieving.

Whateva was still watching The Big Bang Theory. "I love this show!"

"Good for you," Echo said distractedly as she went into the kitchen.

Though her methods of doing mundane things (such as door-opening, for example) were unorthodox, Echo was a decent cook. She wasn't brilliant, but she was one of the few people in the house who could make a meal for everyone without setting fire to the kitchen.

Nevertheless, there were twenty one mouths to feed, so cooking was never an easy task.

Whateva groaned, a rerun. She looked towards the kitchen. "Hey, want some help?" She asked. Whateva was also one of the few decent cooks, only having set fire in the kitchen twice. Echo was taking one of the giant pots from one of the cabinets out and set it in the sink. "Sure. Can you get out the spaghetti? Four packs should be enough for dinner and some leftovers."

Whateva got up and walked to the cupboards. "Shit! Only two packs here."

Echo sighed harshly. "WILL!"

Said Wocky poked her head through the door way. "What?"

"Two packs of spaghetti please."

Will disappeared from the kitchen. The two resident humans heard a loud crash before Will returned and threw two packs at them. "Here," she grunted and left.

Echo smirked. "Her talents come in handy sometimes, don't they?" Whateva shook her head and smiled, nobody knew how Will did it, she just did.

The two humans prepared the insane amount of food for their cohabiting families as their pets upstairs grew more and more hungry.

V stalked down the stairs angrily. "What the hell? Fucking finish dinner already!" she shrieked.

"If you're so fucking hungry, make a fucking sandwich," Echo replied calmly, pouring the pasta through a strainer.

Whateva took out the different sauces: the bolognese, the marinara, the plain butter and the garlic and olive tomato sauce. She lined them up on the counter so everyone could have the sauce of their choice.

V glared at Echo. "I shouldn't _fucking_ have to!" Before anybody could reply, she left to her room.

Echo grinned again. "She has my respect," she said to no one in particular.

The spaghetti was finished five minutes later, and the pets came crashing down the stairs after one of Echo's customary "OI! IT'S DINNERTIME!" yells.

Even Lahetta was there, as embarrassed as she was, she couldn't resist spaghetti.

The dining room table, as you can probably imagine, was enormous, and it needed to be to sit twenty one people down. Everyone chattered with each other over the din of forks scraping against plates. Cloud was politely twirling spaghetti on her fork before bringing it to her mouth. Everybody else was practically shoveling it in.

Echo swallowed. "So," she began before taking another bite of food. Noticing her mistake, she covered her mouth with her hand so that she could talk. "Their Neoschool burned down. And since homeschooling is definitely not an option, I guess we'll have to send them to another," she informed Whateva.

"What? Who burned it down?" Whateva asked. All eyes turned to Fire, yet again.

Fire, still on edge from earlier, immediately snapped at them. "For the last fucking time, IT WASN'T ME!"

Will smirked. "I know who did it," she informed the group.

Dusty was very intrigued by this. "Who was it?" She asked excitedly.

Will's smirk grew larger. She loved keeping others at the edge of their seats. "I don't know if I should say," Will deadpanned. "I'll just let him or her come clean when he or she wants to."

Lahetta rolled her eyes. "I bet whoever did will have a frog in their throat and won't confess." She cringed when remembering what happened hours ago.

Belle made an evil grin when she noticed. "Something wrong, Lahetta?" she asked in a sweet voice laced with malice. Shadow scooted back her chair. "I'm done," she said flatly, taking her half-eaten plate of spaghetti back to the kitchen.

Lahetta glared icily at Belle.

Underneath the table, Belle pressed the flat edge of her dinner knife against Lahetta's knee. Once she felt the cold metal through her fur, Lahetta hastily mumbled something about also being done and followed Shadow out.

V tilted her head to the side, confused. Realization came upon her, she glanced at Belle, and did the same as Shadow and Lahetta.

Lahetta ran over to Shadow. "Hey wimp," she greeted, trying to act like her normal self.

Shadow sighed and stopped. "What do you want?" she asked flatly.

"Let's get one thing straight. Yeah, you might have saved my life, but I don't owe you anything-" Lahetta began.

"I never said that you did."

"Oh." Lahetta was silent for a second. "Well, tell my creepy sister to back off, okay?" she demanded.

"She's your sister," Shadow pointed out as she scooped her spaghetti into a container, labeled it and stuck into the fridge for later.

"But she's fucking plotting against me. I can feel it, Shadow."

Shadow slammed the fridge closed. "Look," she said irritably. "If you want my opinion, you brought this on yourself. _You_ kept bugging her and everyone else, and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Grow up. You're older than Belle and me, so act like it! And if you really didn't see this coming someday, you're even stupider than you let on."

Her outburst over, Shadow stormed off to her room.

Lahetta practically wanted to die, her world had changed so quickly in a matter of one day. She couldn't keep up. She kind of agreed with Shadow.

V walked in on her sister silently angsting in the kitchen. "Crap, what now?"

"It's pronounced 'hello', brainless," Lahetta retorted, but with less attitude than usual.

Lahetta hated herself. She truly did. Sighing, she apologized, "Sorry, V."

V blinked in astonishment. For a second all was still.

Then, Lahetta found herself violently knocked to the floor with V pinning her down. "Who are you and what have you done with Lahetta?" V hissed. Lahetta weakly rolled her eyes. "It's me, V. I don't always have to be mean to be myself."

Bad choice of words.

V smacked her across the face. "Yeah right," she scoffed. "The real Lahetta wouldn't just change because she got attacked by Belle. In fact, the real Lahetta wouldn't even let me pin her down. She'd fight back. You're just some wuss pretending to be her." V stood up and went back into the dining room, talking loudly about an impostor.

Lahetta groaned and rolled over. _Great, now she thinks I'm not myself. Lovely._

Even worse, Echo's paranoia had led to an interrogation, stopped only by Will who explained bluntly enough that Lahetta was going through depression and a possible change of heart.

This was too much for the Acara, and she went upstairs to lock herself in her room. Meanwhile, the remainder of the pets stayed downstairs. "So what are we going to do about school?" Sun asked.

Elva shrugged. "We're in Kiko Lake... There's another school in Neopia Central."

"Neopia Central?" Whateva mused. "Awesome."

While they were discussing that, Lahetta was going over what had happened. _Depression? I'm not depressed... Am I? Oh great, Now I'm talking to myself. This couldn't get worse. _

But maybe, she realized, in this new school, she could reinvent herself. Create a new personality and maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out alright.


	2. Girls' School

The new Neohome was gigantic, big enough for everyone to have their own room. Everyone was excited, though Echo missed Kiko Lake. For her, Neopia Central was lacking in explosives.

The best part about the move was that Sammi and Alsa's party at the Rainbow Pool was even closer to their house than before.

As Lahetta looked in the mirror, she groaned. She loved her brown hair, but it started turning blonde. Now it was half brunette, half blonde. She didn't really like it, she preferred being brunette.

Belle was experimenting with red highlights in another bathroom in the new house. They stood out from her black locks, and she decided that it was a look worth keeping.

Will never cared much for her appearance. In fact, when they all had originally moved to Kiko Lake, her hair had been much shorter, so short that she had decided to go to her first day of school pretending to be a boy. With her name being Will, she had actually convinced everyone that she was a guy, until she grew tired of the joke at the end of the day. She revealed herself to be a girl, and then became the loner that everyone knew. She would play that joke again, but Will wasn't in the mood to cut her hair for the sake of one prank.

Cute and Alivia, on the other hand, were in another bathroom together, trying on pink wigs. Finally, they decided to do pink streaks in their hair.

Shadow fingered her new fringe that she had let Alivia cut for her. The dark wavy strands framed her face nicely.

Fire was deciding on how to wear her long ember-coloured hair. She tried braiding it, then a high ponytail, then a complicated style that she saw in a magazine. Finally, she decided on her usual loose style with a sparkly clip holding the hair on the right side of her face back.

Alsa sighed, she saw everyone changing their hair, yet she had no idea what to do with hers. "Hey, Cute? Could you-"

"Busy," Cute replied, still fixing the streaks in Alivia's hair.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Echo and Whateva were helping the movers get all their stuff back inside.

Actually, Whateva was mostly yelling. "Don't you dare break that!"

Echo gently put down a box and leaned against it, wiping some sweat from her forehead. This was going to be a long move...

She stretched out her back and walked outside to get more boxes.

Lahetta sighed, looking away from the mirror, she walked out to help the move.

Even though their other house had been smaller, the two families still had a lot of stuff. Boxes were piled on the street. Lahetta grabbed one that said "Lahetta" on it.

Belle strolled out slowly, and grabbed the one that said "Belle", then purposely knocked into Lahetta, causing the Cloud Acara to fall to the ground.

"Damn it, Belle," Lahetta cursed under her breath, picking herself back up and dusting herself off.

Eventually, all the boxes had been moved from the truck, and the families had their first meal in the new house: bottled water and tortilla chips.

"I've got some good or bad news," Echo announced. "Since Kiko Lake was small, you could all walk to school. But now we're in Neopia Central, and the city's a lot like the house. Fucking huge. So now we have to drive to school."

Cute and Alivia beamed. "We have a car!" they exclaimed in unison.

The amount of shock on everyone's faces was extreme.

Echo swallowed her chips. "Kinda." She stood up. "Follow me outside."

Outside the house was, for lack of a better word, a bus. It seemed to be the hybrid of a bus and a car, being big enough to fit everyone inside and yet having the styling of a car.

"Do you guys want to see the school?" Echo asked.

V grinned. "Hell yeah!"

Echo unlocked the door and everyone crowded in. Even Lahetta was feeling a little better as she clambered up the stairs and sat down next to Dusty.

Something seemed to dawn on Fire. "Echo, how did you get this?"

There was silence for a moment before Echo turned the radio on very loudly and started driving. Then she stopped. "Oh right, I'm still thirteen." The age-switcher sighed. "Is there anyone here that can drive?"

Several hands went up.

"Legally?"

All hands went down.

Echo groaned and aged ahead to nineteen before driving again.

Alivia played 'Friday' from her iPod and sang along to the lyrics. "Kicking in the front seat, chilling in the back seat!"

Everybody groaned.

Echo turned the radio up louder to drown out the noise. Alivia did the same with her iPod.

By the time the group had reached the school, music was bursting from the vehicle and all its occupants were feeling a little deaf. Luckily, this wasn't the case, but they all had to talk loudly to each other for a while.

The school wasn't shabby and made of wood like their old one in Kiko Lake. It was painted white with a giant campus, complete with a field for sporting events and a theater for any productions.

V rolled her eyes. "Nice. But imagine all the stuck up people here."

Whateva grinned. "Just wait. It'll probably get worse."

Echo knelt down next to the pets. "Now remember kids, what's the first rule of attending a new school?" she questioned jokingly.

"If you can't fuck it up, blow it up?" Gracie guessed.

"If you can't beat 'em, kill 'em?" Alsa guessed.

Echo shrugged. "Something like that."

A green Aisha walked up to them. "Hi, I'm Layla. I'm assuming you're all new here?"

"Someone's smart," Will muttered under her breath.

A pink Kougra came over. "Hey Layla, who are these people?" she asked.

"Oh, them?" Layla waved a hand in their direction. "They're new, Linae."

"It's obvious, _Linae_." Belle rolled her eyes.

Layla waved Linae silent when she opened up her mouth to retort. "So, Little Miss Emo has an attitude problem, huh?" She clicked her tongue. "Shame. You're pretty too."

"Leave them alone, Layla, or have you ran out of students to humiliate?" came a voice from their left.

The owner of the voice was a Usul with long brown hair.

Layla sneered. "_Please_ Hannah, don't embarrass yourself. Go hang out with your boyfriend or something."

Hannah scowled. "Kanrik is_ not_ my-"

Linae rolled her eyes. "Yeah right."

"Shut up, fucking whores." Belle hissed.

Echo and Whateva were both watching this unfold with mild interest. Whateva even had popcorn.

Whateva grinned. "This is fucking awesome." she whispered to Echo.

Linae and Layla were about to say something when-

"OMG, he is so cute!" Alivia exclaimed, looking at a guy that wasn't too far away.

"Totally!" Cute agreed.

Linae looked confused for a moment. "You mean Jeran?" she asked, pointing at a blue Lupe. "Sorry, he only pays attention to his little sister."

Hannah nudged Sun. "Did that girl just say 'OMG' even though she's not texting?" she whispered.

"That girl is my sister, and yes. She does it a lot." Sun replied.

"Not him!" Alivia pointed in another direction. "HIM!" She squealed.

"Watch out, Hannah. Looks like somebody is after your boyfriend." Layla said.

Hannah looked furious. "Kanrik is NOT MY BOYFRIEND!" she exploded.

"Oh?" Layla smiled innocently. "Then you won't mind if... Name?"

"Alivia," Alivia replied.

"Alivia asks him out, will you?" Layla finished.

"Or if I do?" Cute smirked.

"Hey, I saw him first!" Alivia protested.

V rolled her eyes. Alivia and Cute fighting over some guy. Typical.

Hannah didn't blink an eye. "Be my guest," she said with a sweeping hand motion.

Cute made a move to walk over to Kanrik, but Alivia tackled her to the ground. "Oh _hell _no!"

Lahetta silently recorded the fight on her phone.

As Cute and Alivia fought on the ground, Whateva noticed that it was getting late, and that her favorite show was going to be aired in fifteen minutes. This led to a hasty, bland goodbye to everyone and dragging a still-fighting pair of sisters into the bus-car.

* * *

><p>New school, new students, new teachers and a new campus to explore.<em> Shit.<em>

Lahetta walked aimlessly around in the hallways until she found room 405. _Here goes nothing..._ She pushed open the door and walked in.

A few students were already seated.

A red Ixi, who sat in the second row, waved at Lahetta kindly.

Lahetta, grateful for any kind of friendliness this early on, sat down next to her. "Hey, I'm Lahetta."

"Lori," the Ixi replied in a thick southern accent.

"I love your accent. Are you from the south?" Lahetta asked.

A yellow Pteri, who sat a few seats away from them, had paper balls getting thrown at her. "Hey, cut it out!" she cried.

Lori nodded and smiled at her. "I love your hair," she drawled. "Both colours look good on you."

Lahetta smiled back. "I didn't really even do anything to it, it just... happened."

Lori was about to reply when the rest of the class arrived. Among them were Cloud, Sammi, Sun and Tawni.

Cloud sat in the front, close to the teacher's desk, Sammi and Sun sat next to each other closer to the middle, and Tawni shuffled her way to the back of the class.

The teacher was late, _very _late.

A few minutes later, when the teacher finally arrived, Cloud's jaw dropped.

The teacher was a speckled Xweetok who wore glasses. She was carrying a load of books, and she used magic to open the door. Slamming the books down on her desk, she paused for a moment to stretch.

"That's our teacher, Miss Xandra," Lori whispered to Lahetta. "If you're nice to her, she treats you well. If you're not, then you just signed your own death certificate."

Xandra faced her class. "So, as all of you should have noticed by now, we have some new students."

_Crap, we're not going to have to introduce ourselves, are we?_ Lahetta cringed at the thought.

"Now, stand up in front of the class and introduce yourselves."

_FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! _Lahetta thought.

Cloud immediately stood up and went to the front of the room. Sun dragged Sammi along as Lahetta picked herself up from her seat. Tawni shrugged and walked unconcernedly up front.

They all looked at each other and then at the class.

"Well... I'm Sammi," Sammi started.

"Tawni," Tawni grunted.

"My name is Cloud." Cloud said cheerily.

Lahetta grinned. "I'm Isabella."

Sun elbowed her. "Fine, fine. I'm Lahetta."

"I'm Sun." Sun said boredly.

Xandra adjusted her glasses. "I'm your teacher, Miss Xandra. Each of you are expected to follow the proper classroom etiquette-"

"Xandra? I think you've bored them enough," said a blue Ixi with a cocky grin.

"Oh, definitely." Lahetta added, with a grin of her own.

Tawni rolled her eyes.

Xandra glared at the blue Ixi. "I've had enough of you, Hanso. Would you like to go see the principal again for disrupting my class?"

"Aw, lighten up, Miss," the Ixi, apparently named Hanso replied breezily.

He was nudged sharply in the ribs by a blue Gelert sitting next to him, which the sisters recognised as the boy that Alivia and Cute were fighting over yesterday.

"It's not worth it," Kanrik told Hanso.

The neopets sat back down.

After who knows how long, it was lunch time.

_Finally. _Tawni thought.

Lahetta picked up the many books that Xandra had given them and started to walk out, only to drop them and come falling to the ground with them.

"Crap!" she cursed.

"Need a little help?" someone asked. A blue Wocky helped Lahetta pick her books back up, stacking them in a manageable order before leaving without another word.

"That was Clara," Lori announced, walking over from her seat. "She's not one for small talk. She's a brain, like Becky." Lori pointed at the yellow Pteri that was sitting in front of them.

Becky got up and started to walk away, only making it 4 steps before unspeakable evil stopped her.

_Oh no... Not them!_ She panicked.

Strolling down the hallways were Layla, Linae and Lilian, who seemed to have recruited Alivia into their group.

Hannah went over to Lahetta and Lori. "You've met Layla, the Queen Bee, and Linae, the evil second-in-command. They're both pretty, but complete idiots. But Lilian, the Xweetok, she's okay. But it looks like they have your sister."

Lahetta rolled her eyes. _It could be worse, if they had Belle with them. _

"Let's go." Lori said.

* * *

><p>Class in room 428 was going to be bad. Lily knew it almost immediately.<p>

From the moment she and her sisters, along with Shadow, had walked into the room, they were greeted by a pompous orange Lutari.

"Hello ladies," he said. "The name's Roxton A. Colchester the Third."

He was soon pushed out of the way by Dusty. "Screw off!" she called over her shoulder.

Cute rolled her eyes. She and Kelly found seats and sat down.

Lily sighed. "Sorry about that. Are you okay?" she held out a hand.

Roxton took her hand and she helped him up. He dusted himself off. "It's no problem," he assured her. "It happens a lot, in fact. I can't imagine why..."

Shadow, meanwhile, rushed to get a seat next to the window. One thing she couldn't live without when she was at school, was a window to look out of when things got a little too hectic or complicated.

Lily smiled at him before taking a seat at the end of the room.

Dusty looked around and decided to take an empty seat next to a red Kyrii wearing a bandana.

Kelly sighed. She hated this class already.

Two girls, a pink Ixi and an orange Kougra sat down nearby, talking away.

"I still can't believe you turned me in, Brynn" the Ixi grumbled.

"Hey, I'm the Hall Monitor, Nabile, it's my job," the Kougra, Brynn replied.

The Kyrii next to Dusty leaned forward and tapped Nabile on her shoulder. "Deed Brynn get you een trouble again?" he asked in a strong French accent.

Cute grinned. She silently slipped her phone out, and updated her blog, then put it away.

You see, most people have a hobby in their spare time. Whether it's rock collecting, traveling, or anything else. But Cute's hobby is her gossip blog.

It seemed an eternity before the teacher, an elderly Gnorbu, arrived in class. He didn't even seem to notice the new students. Instead, he started immediately on a study of Shenkuu's lunar cycle, a subject that didn't appeal to anyone.

Dusty threw paper balls. "Hey, teach something interesting!"

Cute updated her blog. _Wow, Dusty is becoming like V._ Submit.

The Kyrii next to Dusty shushed her. "Eet's boreeng," he told her, "But eet gets anyone who leestens an A on ze report card. He doesn't teach anything else, so we get ze full credeet for zis one lesson."

Dusty had taken a French class in Kiko Lake, it proved to come in handy.

"Really? Awesome." She stored her paper balls away.

Shadow, meanwhile, was scribbling in her notebook. She wasn't taking notes as much as writing what came to her.

Right now, she was writing what was going on in the classroom, other than the lesson.

Kelly seemed to be getting along well with Nabile, and Roxton occasionally passed a note over to Lily.

This made Cute happy, _very_ happy. And when Cute is happy, you just _know_ her blog is filled.

The Gnorbu finished up his lesson as the bell rang. He still didn't pay attention to the new students, nor did he tell anyone his name. He was just "that crazy old Gnorbu that stares at the moon".

Lily thought about asking him, but decided against it.

Cute saw Alivia passing by the classroom, accompanied by Layla and Linae from the day before, along with a third girl that she didn't recognize. Cute snapped a picture. _This is so going on my blog..._

Shadow gathered up her books and left the classroom, grateful for lunch. She wasn't looking where she was going, and she bumped into a white Bori in the middle of the hallway.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she exclaimed as she knelt down to pick up her stuff.

The Bori helped her. "It's no problem," he assured her. "Are you new here?"

Shadow nodded. "Yeah. I'm Shadow, one of the girls from Kiko Lake."

"Another? We had five in my class alone!" He shook his head. "I'm Armin, by the way."

Lily went next to Shadow. "Hey, Shad. Who's this?" she asked politely.

Cute snapped another picture, and typed a description. _What is this? Shadow has a boyfriend?_ Submit.

"It's Shadow, not Shad," Shadow reminded Lily. "Lily, this is Armin. Armin, this is Lily, another girl from Kiko Lake."

Armin blinked. "No offense, but how many of you are there?"

"Nineteen," Lily replied.

Kelly walked next to Lily. "And I'm another one." she laughed, then added in a creepy voice. "We're everywhere."

Armin chuckled nervously. "Right... I'll just be going now..." He left quickly.

Kelly grabbed Lilly's hand. "Let's get outta here."

Cute grinned, she snapped yet another picture. She knew how to make the most innocent things seem dirty. She typed a description. _What is this? Are Kelly and Lily... sisters with benefits?_ Submit.

* * *

><p>Belle walked down the halls with supreme confidence until she reached classroom 466.<p>

She looked around in awe before taking a seat. _My kind of people._

Next to her was a green Acara, who introduced herself as Masila. "The teacher's a total douche," was Masila's conversation-starter.

"Agreed. Just_ look_ at him." Belle replied.

The teacher, a white Lupe with a long beard, introduced himself as Professor Altador. And, of course, he asked for all the new students to introduce themselves.

Fire, V, Alivia, Alsa, and Belle stood up.

"I'm Alivia!" Alivia beamed.

"And I'm Belle." Belle said, smirking. She winked at the class before sitting back down.

Fire ran her fingers through her hair once, a little nervous. "I'm Fire."

Alsa smiled at the class. "My name is Alsa."

"V," V said disinterestedly.

Layla, who happened to be in their class, snorted. "V? What kind of name is that?"

V glared at her with obvious hatred. "If you stopped bitching enough to actually think, you'd realize it's a fucking nickname." She crossed her arms, practically daring Layla to challenge her.

Layla scoffed and smoothed her skirt. "Okay, _V_, humour me. What's your name?"

V froze. She never told anybody her name, only Whateva knew.

She mumbled something that nobody could even hear, and sat back down.

Layla leaned over to Linae and whispered something to her which made the Kougra giggle.

It took every inch of Alsa's self control not to choke Layla to death. _That little bitch..._

Even worse, Linae leaned over and started talking to Alivia. Their sister started chatting and giggling along with them.

Fire, meanwhile, was sitting nearby a white Bori and an orange Kyrii.

V's face reddened in anger and she ran out of the classroom.

Belle sighed. _I like V, I really do. But..._She walked out also, to console V.

Minutes later, Belle found V in the girls bathroom.

V wasn't crying, but instead washing her hands, doing the same movement over and over. Belle had seen this before, that whenever V was feeling particularly angry, she repeated a simple movement until she calmed down, whether it was pacing, or scribbling, or in this case, washing her hands.

"You know, you might wash your hands _clean_ off if you keep at it." Belle's lame attempt at humor.

"Maybe then you'd fuck off and leave me alone." V's attempt at a threatening comeback.

"Nah, I don't swing that way." Belle's attempt at being an ass.

V sighed sharply and turned off the water. She flicked her wet hands at Belle before wiping them off on her pants. "What do you want?" she asked dully.

"To know why you ran out."

"I didn't _run_ out."

Belle rolled her eyes. "No, you just decided that your hands were looking a little grimy and it needed attention ASAP," she replied sarcastically.

V growled. "Just leave me alone Belle, I don't need your sympathy."

Meanwhile, Elva had heard their "discussion" as she was walking towards the bathroom, she swore.

_Looks like I'll have to find another one..._She sighed, and walked in the other direction.

Eventually, Elva found another bathroom on the other side of the school.

Hurrying, she didn't look at the sign and walked right into the Boys' bathroom

_Oh crap._

Luckily for her, no one was in there. But instead of risking getting caught in the Boy's Room, Elva ran out and walked down one flight of stairs, going to the Girl's Room on the floor below.

Meanwhile, Belle was still arguing with V.

"You selfish bitch!" V screamed.

"Selfish? I fucking came here to help you!" Belle shrieked.

"I don't need your help!" V shouted, her blonde hair falling in her eyes.

Belle, furious, reached out and slapped her sister across the face.

That was it. The final straw for V.

"You SLAP me? You don't have a fucking right to slap me! Just because you choked Lahetta doesn't mean you can do whatever you want! You shouldn't have even choked her! Sure, she's more kind now, but she's fucking fallng apart! Have you even noticed?"

Belle sneered. "Yeah I've noticed. And you know what? People fall apart. It's fucking LIFE! You learn to deal with it! And yeah, I slapped you, wanna know why? Because I don't need your bullshit, I don't need your bitching and complaining, and you need to fucking deal with your problems. Actually, help Lahetta with that too. She's too damn weak to even get over one attack."

The Shoyru was finished. She turned on her heel and walked out of the bathroom and back to class. Right now, V wasn't worth her time.

Oh, V was pissed- No, she was downright _murderous_ now.

Belle re-entered her classroom and sat down back next to Masila.

"What was that about?" she questioned.

Belle sighed. "Sisters," she said flatly. "I swear, they get on your last nerve. And I have fifteen of them."

"Fifteen? Wow. Your mother must not have a life."

Belle grimaced. "Not exactly. My mother isn't a mother exactly. She's, you know, human."

Understanding passed through Masila's expression. "Oh, I get it now."

"And we live with another human, but she only has three, so it's not as bad."

Masila grinned. "Shall I come over sometime?"

Belle grinned back. "Trust me, you'd love it there."

"Oh really? I'm sure we would all have an_ interesting_ time." Masila smirked.

"That's one word for it," Belle muttered before earning a disapproving look from Altador.

"Girls, class is not a time to be discussing your personal lives!"

"Only because _you_ don't have a life to talk about." Alsa said.

Altador kept his composure. "Actually, I have quite a few stories to tell," he told her calmly.

"Like what?"

The old Lupe sat down in his chair. "Like the time I was attacked by a beast back in my farmland, before I came here..."

And Altador told the class stories of his youth, and all the people he met and their virtues. In the end, everyone was listening quietly to what he had to tell them.

"Damn, teach. Nobody would've guessed you've done anything interesting." Belle said, impressed.

Altador smiled at her. "Never judge a book by its cover," he said in reply.

The bell rang, and almost immediately the white Bori in front of Fire packed up his stuff and walked out.

"That's Armin," the orange Kyrii next to her, who introduced himself as Jazan, told her. "He doesn't like to stay long."

Layla, Linae and the red Xweetok were all talking to Alivia, who left the classroom along with them.

"Did you see Cute's blog?" Alivia asked. "It has a lot of information we might deem useful in our project."

They stared at her.

"What?"

"My sister, Cute, remember?" Alivia showed them her phone where Cute's blog showed its newest information.

Layla and Linae looked at the blog. Occasionally they giggled or gasped. "This is perfect!" Layla exclaimed.

But the red Xweetok, who was named Lilian, shook her head. "It's seems a little too over the top," she said, scrolling up to the picture of Kelly and Lily holding hands.

"I mean, 'sisters with benefits'? That just looks like a desperate cry for attention."

"But, why would they be seen on purpose?" Alivia asked, confused.

Lilian shook her head, yet again. "You don't understand."

Alivia's phone made a _ding_ noise. Cute's blog had been updated again.

Alivia looked at it and gasped. "Shadow has a boyfriend!" she exclaimed.

"Give me that!" Layla took the phone and showed to to Linae and Lilian. "Is that Armin?"

Lilian shook her head a third time. "He's talking to someone. And there are Lily and Kelly in the picture as well."

"But Cute's the one who took the picture. You weren't there, so you don't know what's been going on," Linae observed.

"Why don't we just_ ask_?" Alivia snatched her phone back.

Layla snorted. "Alivia, one thing you have to learn about student life here is that no one will tell the truth. It comes at a price."

"But it's Cute, she's nice and we can just lie and say we're fans." Alivia glared straight at Layla.

The loudspeaker rang out. "Lilian Fairweather to the principle's office."

"What did you do?" Linae asked.

Lilian shrugged, and all four of them walked down the hallway, looking very much like the popular clique they were.

* * *

><p>"Does anybody know the sum to this equation?"<p>

"I do!" a green Peophin exclaimed happily.

Pie and Gracie glanced at each other. The teacher, some Ogrin who couldn't see, had written a bunch of squiggles on the board and expected them to answer correctly. And yet somehow, that green Peophin named Alison got everything right.

A yellow Aisha named Hoban snorted rudely. Alison looked at him with a hurt expression.

"Yes, Hoban, do you have something to say?" the Ogrin asked.

Alison frowned. "What is it?" she asked Hoban, with her sweet voice.

"She always answers everything," Hoban complained.

The Usul named Garin jabbed him in the ribs. "And do you think you can answer?"

Hoban remained silent.

"The answer is seventeen," came a bored voice in the front of the classroom. Will was leaning back on her chair, at an angle that most people would fall from, but Will wasn't most people. Physics didn't apply.

Alison smiled. "I agree," she told the Ogrin.

"It's okay, Ally. Hoban is just a little fucker anyways!" Gracie consoled.

Elva chuckled, "Do you know what that means, Gracie?"

Gracie frowned, "No, but I heard Whateva say it."

"Just because Whateva said it doesn't mean-" Pie began.

"And Echo was screaming it at a bunch of petpetpets that were in our pantry," Gracie cut across her. Elva and Pie didn't reply.

The red Lupe sitting next to Will looked at her curiously. The Wocky in question had her eyes closed and was still leaning back in her chair. "What do you want?" she asked him without opening an eye.

"How did you know the answer?" he asked.

Will lazily opened one eye. "I defy logic."

"She really does." Gracie squealed.

A Grundo groaned. "Great. Now we have Little Miss Perfection and a logic-defying chick."

The Cybunny next to him slapped him. "Shut up, Gorix!"

Elva suddenly stood up and left the classroom, going unnoticed by the blind teacher.

"Anybody wanna play a game?" Pie asked, bored.

"Excuse me, young lady, but I am teaching a class," the Ogrin said, addressing a table.

Will sat down normally, and quietly walked over to the other side of the room. "Hey, there's a Spyder over here!" she screamed in a voice that was definitely not hers. Nor was there actually a Spyder.

"SPYDER!" Gracie screamed. She immediately jumped into Tomos's arms.

Elva walked back from the bathroom, her jaw dropped. "Um..."

Tomos put Gracie down. "There's no Spyder," he whispered to her.

Will spoke again in the voice that wasn't hers. "Get it! It's going toward the teacher!" Quick as a flash, Will slid over to her original spot in the front of the room and began speaking in her regular voice. "Oh wow, that is one huge Spyder!"

Pie grinned. "I love this game. THAT SPYDER IS HUGE!"

Gracie smiled, "I know." she whispered and winked at him.

Elva was at a loss for words, still standing in the doorway.

Alison, being perfect and yet innocent at the same time, remained quiet. She didn't want to ruin anyone's fun, nor did she want to lie to the teacher.

"Whoa! Look at that Spyder!" Gorix yelled, grinning at the joke.

Will leaned back in her seat again and smiled at her creation.

Elva laughed. "That fucking Spyder is goddamn gigantic!"

The Ogrin was flailing about wildly, trying to find the imaginary Spyder.

"It's on your left!" Tomos called out.

The Ogrin turned, walked a few too many steps and crashed into the wall.

"Oh no!" Alison exclaimed dramatically.

She ran over to check on him, and saw that nearly all of his teeth were knocked out.

The class fell silent. Then, students silently gathered their books and left until only a few remained.

Alison, being perfect, knew magical first-aid, and the Ogrin leaped up, looking good as new and maybe a few years younger.

Then, he and Alison burst into song.

Will got out of her chair. "I'm leaving," she announced before walking out the door.

"I love that song! Encore!" Gracie shouted, smiling.

"Aw fuck." Elva pouted.

Alison, smiling so brightly that it seemed to light up the room and beautify all the people around her, started singing again. Her melodious voice seemed to attract all of the students who had left back into the room, and even a few from other classes.

"Damn, Ally," Pie said in awe.

Will, however, didn't return. Whether it was because she defied logic, or because she wanted to establish her reputation as a loner, nobody knew.

And no one will ever know.

Alison's singing caused other students to sing along with her. She danced, and all the others danced too. Soon, it was like a remake of Greece in classroom 304.

Will, a little while away, smiled and rolled her eyes. "Damn Mary Sues."

A spy for Cute was peeking in from the window, snapping pictures.

You see, the spy had been taking pictures the entire time, from Gracie unknowingly swearing until right now.

How Cute got this spy, only Will knew.

And Alison probably knew too, because she was perfect.

Actually, maybe Cute didn't even know how she got this spy either...

Once the musical number was over, a bunch of students went over to Alison and begged her to audition in the school musical.

"I don't know... What if somebody else wants too?" Alison said sadly. "I may not even have a chance."

"You will! You'll be perfect!" the students cried out in perfect unison.

This was creepy and annoying even to the people writing this shit.

The co-writer now has a great desire to whack the other co-writer for writing that sentence, thus breaking the fourth wall.

"What if I get blue? I have nobody to support me." She said, pouting.

"That doesn't make sense, you're green." Gracie stated, confused.

The first co-writer, having saw what the other co-writer had written, grinned to herself. They both knew that the fourth wall was as useless as their T rating.

Pie sighed and took Gracie into a corner to explain to her what "feeling blue" meant.

"You'll be great, Ally!" Cylara squealed.

The _apparently _second co-writer now desires to say horrific things to the other co-writer.

"Okay! I hope I get the lead!" Alison said, happy.

The first co-writer expresses that she only referred to herself as the first because she was the first one to break the fourth wall. She is still amused by this.

"You will!" all the students cried, once again in sickening unison.

The other co-writer is still fuming.

"Anybody wanna go watch my audition after school?" Alison asked sweetly.

The first co-writer is starting to think that the readers will get annoyed by their talking in the midst of the story, and has decided to ignore her other co-writer from this moment on.

And because everyone wanted to see Alison audition, the bell rang early for lunch so that they could all watch her rehearse.

"This is fucked up," Elva mumbled in a brief moment of clarity.

"Very. But you have to admit, she was good." Pie said to Elva.

Alison was going to rehearse for her audition in the girls bathroom, but everyone insisted she rehearse in the drama room.

"So, what's the play this month?" She asked somebody.

But nobody answered. They were too busy eating and staring at her.

But this didn't bother Alison, and she started practicing her scales.

As she was practicing, she looked at a few posters around. _Oh... It's Beauty and the Beast. Cute._

Meanwhile, back with the people this story is actually about, the crack group of sixteen plus three were regrouping for lunch


	3. Sorority Girl

**If anybody is actually reading this story, I'm sure you've noticed that I've named the last chapters. Chapter 2 is named after a 1930's movie. I will be naming these chapters after movies. I won't be reading the actual bio's for the movies, just the titles (Hey, I'm lazy.) So only the titles of the movies will make sense for this, not the actual movies. (Understand... m'kay?)**

"I hate it here," V growled as they all went to the cafeteria.

Cloud, deciding to ignore V's angry statement, wondered aloud what was for lunch.

"Ugh. Sloppy Joes." V said in disgust.

Normally, almost everybody loves Sloppy Joes, even one of the co-writers of this, but everybody knew that the ones at this school sucked.

But this was lunch for the unpopulars. The populars had way better lunch.

Their lunch consisted of ceasar salad, a grilled cheese sandwich, a bottle of water and a slice of apple pie.

Some of the crack group of sixteen plus three already had lunches provided for them, but since there was nineteen of them, Echo and Whateva had only made so many lunches before Echo moodily drove them to school.

"Hey, why is lunch different?" Gracie asked, curiously.

The lunch lady, a pissy-looking Kau answered bluntly, "It's life, honey. Get used to it." And she gave out everyone their lunches.

The crack group of sixteen plus three, upon looking around the several tables, found that they all wouldn't be able to sit together. Some were fine with this, however.

Will, for one, took her lunch over to a corner of the room and sat on the floor, establishing her reputation as a loner then and there. Fire sat down at a table with Shadow, and Belle, Alsa and Sammi followed them.

Gracie sat at a table with Pie and Lily.

They were confused as a couple of people started snickering.

They weren't sure why, until they noticed Roxton sitting at their table with them, followed by Hoban.

"Hello, ladies, I hope you don't mind us joining you," Roxton said in an attempt at being suave.

"Hey Roxton, what's up?" Lily was the only person in the entire school who actually liked Roxton.

"Hi! You're Hobo, right?" Gracie smiled brightly.

Pie facepalmed.

Roxton's smile faltered only for a second. "No," he corrected Gracie gently, "Actually, I want to explore the world when I leave school."

"I'll be the navigator," Hoban announced even though no one really cared. "I'm great at reading maps."

"Really? Where do you want to go?" Lily asked.

Gracie giggled. "You can't _read_ a map."

Hoban stared at Gracie. "How stupid _are_ you?"

Roxton, choosing to ignore Hoban and Gracie in favor of someone who actually didn't hate him, answered Lily's question. "I was thinking of sea travel, finding all these new islands and stuff. You know, beaches and jungles and things like that."

"Wow, it must be so beautiful out there, in the open world." Lily sighed, she always was an outdoors type.

Meanwhile, Lahetta had sat with Lori and Becky, who were joined by Clara who couldn't find anywhere else to sit.

"Hey Clara, do you know which problems we have to do for tomorrow?" Becky asked.

"No."

"I can get V to find out for you, she's good at these things. Of course, for a fee." Lahetta grinned.

Lori looked at Lahetta curiously. "You mean like a service?" she drawled. "B'cause people here really would pay for that."

Lahetta raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"My calculations show, that yes they would." Becky said.

"Interesting." Lahetta smiled.

Alivia was sitting with Layla and Linae while they waited for Lilian to come back from the principal's office.

"Why do you think she got sent there?" Alivia wondered aloud.

"Who knows?" Layla snapped. She was irritable today.

Linae cleared her throat. "Maybe she got caught cheating on a test. She always gets good grades, but we don't know how. You can't be pretty _and_ a genius, that's, like, against the laws of nature or something!"

"You can be pretty _and_ smart. A lot of my sisters are." Alivia replied, taking a drink of her water.

Linae shook her head. "They're either pretending to be smart like Lilian, or they're trying too hard to look pretty when they're really plain-looking."

"Will you both shut up?" Layla snarled. She had a headache and wasn't in the mood to listen to this stupid conversation.

"They really are pretty _and_ smart." Alivia defended. "And plain _can_ be pretty."

"THAT'S IT!" Layla shouted, and that successfully shut up both Linae and Alivia for a few moments.

Alivia tried a new tactic. "Hey, you know Sammi and Alsa, two of my sisters, are having a party at the Rainbow Pool this Saturday. You should totally come!"

"What time?" Linae asked.

"At nine," Alivia told them, then went into details about the party.

"Interesting..." Layla mused. "Linae, we have some people to tell about this."

"What people about what?" Alivia asked stupidly.

Linae grinned. "Only, like, everybody! This party's going to be so cool once we get everyone there!"

Sammi and Alsa, sitting a few tables away, heard this conversation and immediately began to get nervous.

"What's the matter?" Fire asked.

"The bitch squad is planning to crash their party and invite others too," Belle replied.

Fire glanced at Shadow, who kept eating her sandwich without so much as a glance upward. Belle had become very different since the Lahetta Incident, as it became known as.

Sammi and Alsa texted back and forth, something they had learned from Cute and Alivia.

_WTF R WE GOIN DO?_

_IDK! THINK! D:_ Alsa replied.

_DO WE, LYK, MAKE OUR PARTY CRA-Z?_

_MOAR FOOD, MOAR GAMES, MORE EVRYTHNG!_

Fire looked uncomfortably between Belle and Shadow. "Are you two okay?" she asked.

Belle looked over Sammi's shoulder, seeing the texting, she rolled her eyes.

She grinned evilly, having an idea.

_WARNING! THIS MESSAGE MAY BE A SPAM!_

Alsa jumped when she got the text.

"Crap," Alsa muttered, deleting the text.

"What?" Fire asked.

"I'm getting spammed," Alsa replied.

Shadow still hadn't said a word, but kept eating her sandwich.

_WARNING! THIS MESSAGE IS ABSOLUTELY A SPAM!_

"Shit, it's happening to me now." Sammi deleted the text.

Fire knitted her eyebrows together. "Why don't you just block the spammer?" she suggested.

"They blocked their number." Alsa replied.

Fire was next. _WARNING! YOU'VE JUST BEEN SPAMMED! _

Fire deleted the text unconcernedly. "We're being trolled," she announced.

Shadow still wasn't talking.

Alivia next. _WARNING! I'M A SPAMMER! _

"Huh?" The Wocky stared at her phone and started panicking. "Guys, I'm being spammed!"

Will also got a text. _SPAM ALERT! THIS IS SPAM!_ Will deleted the text and turned off her phone. It was an old piece of shit that she didn't use often anyway.

_SPAM YOU! HAHAHAHA!_ Just to piss off Layla.

_Hello. Guess what? I'M A SPAMMER! YOU'VE JUST BEEN SPAMMED!_ Just to confuse Gracie.

Shadow finished her sandwich and packed everything up. As she stood to leave, she said quietly, "You know, Belle, pretending to be a spammer isn't the best way to get attention." The Xweetok left, and Fire, Sammi and Alsa all looked over at Belle.

"Hey, it did get your attention." Belle chuckled. "Losers."

"I actually sent one of those." Somebody said.

Belle whipped around in her seat to see who the other spammer was.

It was none other than...

"I hope that doesn't bother you," said a familiar voice.

"Roxton? Are you serious?" Lily asked.

Roxton grinned sheepishly. "It looked like fun," he said. "And I only sent one," he added, sounding defensive.

Lily frowned and wiped a lone tear from her face. "Now I see why everybody hates you." She fled the room.

Silence.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Stupid things happened, boring people talked, and in the end, seeing a thirty-three year old Echo pulling up in a bus/car was a relief to everyone.

"Where's Whateva... again?" Alsa asked.

Echo pointed silently over her shoulder with her thumb at the backseat, where Whateva was passed out and listening to rock music on an iPod that she didn't have before.

The pets were equally silent on the drive back home.

"So... Are there any events?" Gracie asked, trying to break the ice.

"I'm expecting some visitors later today," Echo replied, eyes still on the road.

"The whole school knows about our party," Sammi told Echo.

"So now we need to go into full party-planning mode, am I right?" Echo asked.

Whateva stirred, hearing 'mode'.

"I-I guess," Sammi stammered.

Echo sighed, braked at a red light, and slammed her forehead against the steering wheel, sounding the horn. Everyone jumped in surprise.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?" Whateva screamed at Echo. She did not like being woke up.

Echo slowly raised her head, a red mark on her forehead from the impact on the steering wheel. "Douchebag on the road," she lied.

Everybody believed it, except Whateva.

"Lie." Whateva snorted.

Echo smirked. "So you weren't really asleep, then?"

"Half. Gotta be aware of your surroundings."

The pets were confused, as they always were whenever their respective owners had a conversation.

"Anyway," Echo continued as the light turned green and she continued to drive. "We need to plan one hell of a party when we get home."

"YEAH! PARTY MODE, BABY!" Whateva stuck her fingers in a peace sign.

"I like her better when she's asleep." Belle complained.

Echo sighed in relief. She hated party planning.

Back at the house, since there was no homework for the new students so that they could continue to unpack and such, they all gathered in the room they designated as their new living room to plan the new, insane party.

"Dynamite?" Lahetta suggested.

"Normally I'd say yes, but we can't blow up the Rainbow Pool," Echo told her.

"Why don't we start with food?" Elva suggested.

"How about Cheese Danishes?" Lily wondered aloud.

"How about not," V denied her.

"Italian food?" Kelly suggested.

"SPAGHETTI!" Whateva yelled. How she loved spaghetti.

"Pizzas, bruschetta, lasagna, pastas and meats... I'm in," Echo said.

"We need brownies and cookies, too," Fire interjected.

"I'll make the cookies." Whateva grinned.

"Brownies for the win." Gracie giggled.

"Cool, but what about decorations and stuff?" Alsa asked worriedly.

"On it," Will said bluntly, and she left the room. Then she poked her head back in. "I might be gone for a while," she informed them all before leaving again.

"...So Will's got that covered," Shadow said bemusedly.

"Entertainment?" Sammi wondered.

Will poked her head back into the room. "Like I said, I'm on it." She left again.

"That's... helpful," Echo said. Then she clapped her hands together. "C'mon people, we need to get cooking!"

A few hours later, the kitchen was a mess.

Eggshells were scattered across the floor, and everything was covered in flour as if it was snow. The cooks were also covered in various ingredients and a few had burns, but the food looked pristine.

Except for the giant walking doughnut, but no one mentioned this.

"This is going to be awesome." Belle grinned.

"Nobody better fuck it up." Whateva flicked flour off her hand.

"Quite. Now get the fuck out of the kitchen, all of you," Echo commanded. "I still have to feed you all."

Whateva grinned. "Good luck." She left.

The pets left Echo to clean up/make more food for them. They all sprawled out on the chairs and couches in the living room.

Gracie went upstairs to her room and closed the door. She wanted to check her Neomail.

"Spam. Spam. Ooh- Wait, spam." Gracie sighed, and went to open her door... she couldn't.

You see, Gracie didn't realise that she had to push her door open, instead of pulling it open.

Gracie started panicking. "Help!" she cried.

The people downstairs didn't hear her, as they were too busy arguing over which show they should watch, cooking and cleaning, or in Will's case, not at home.

She screamed. "Help me!"

Downstairs...

"Hey, do you hear something?"

"Nah."

Gracie tried opening her door once more, with no luck. In desperation, she took out her cellphone. "Hello? Police?"

"Souhaitez-vous essayer nos offres spéciales, mlle?" **(Do you want to try our special offers, miss?)**

"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?"

Hanging up and trying again five times, a new record for her, Gracie finally got through to the police.

"Hello?"

"Yes miss, what is the problem?"

"I'm trapped! Get me out of here!"

"Are you in an alley?"

Gracie looked around. "No."

"Are you in someone's basement or attic?"

"No, I'm in my house."

There was a silence on the other end of the line. "Are you being held captive?" the officer demanded.

Gracie, not knowing what captive meant, decided to say yes.

"What's your address?"

"364 North Leather Street."

A few minutes later, Echo had finished cleaning up and making dinner, serving it out, and flopped down on one of the couches for a little rest. That is, until she heard the sound of several cars pull up.

She heard a sound over a megaphone. "People inside the house, please turn yourself in! Let your hostages go! We have you surrounded!"

"Da fuck?" Echo wondered aloud.

Belle opened the door slightly. "Hostages? We don't have any hostages." She winked at them.

A bunch of guns were pointed to her head, and Belle froze.

Echo opened the door wide. Now, this normally wouldn't be a problem, but this was a case where Echo was still scruffy from work, had a rifle on her back and was inside a house surrounded for a possible hostage situation.

"What's going on?" she demanded. Her violent tone didn't help either.

"A young lady called and said she was trapped."

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" Lahetta screamed.

Echo sighed. "Look, either you have the wrong house, or-" She was cut off by the appearance of the walking doughnut running out of the house and through the crowd of police.

The guns were now pointed at Echo. "Care to explain that, ma'am?" the cop with the megaphone asked.

An explanation was prevented as a certain peophin walked up to their house.

"Hey, what's going on?" Alison asked.

"Who the fuck are you?" Echo was beyond confused by this point.

"I don't know," Belle admitted. Being one grade older than Alison, she didn't know her yet.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sorry," Alison gasped, her eyelashes fluttering in dismay. "I'm Alison, and I go to school with some of your pets."

"Lovely. Now what's going on?" Echo demanded.

"That's what we want to know." an officer said.

"I don't believe these people did anything." Alison said to the police, hair shining and eyes twinkling.

Lahetta rolled her eyes.

"O-Okay," another officer said. "But that doesn't excuse the fact that we got a call from a person who said she was trapped."

"Wait a sec," Belle said slowly. "Gracie didn't come down to dinner, and she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. You don't think-"

"Check her room," Echo ordered.

Belle ran up the stairs, to Gracie's room.

Meanwhile, Alison unknowingly seduced the police.

And yes, this was very creepy, seeing as Alison was about twelve years old. Echo watched with fascination and disgust.

Belle walked down with Gracie in tow. "She couldn't open her door," Belle explained angrily.

"See? They did nothing wrong. You can leave now, if you want." Alison flashed the cops a smile.

"Sorry." Gracie pouted.

Echo facepalmed. "Leave. All of you. NOW."

The police and Alison left, and Echo, Belle, Lahetta and Gracie all went indoors. None of them spoke a word.

"So..." Lahetta started.

"Nothing happened," Echo said forcefully.

"But-" Gracie began.

"Nothing. Happened. Got it?"

"But something did happen! THIS ISN'T A TIME WARP!" Gracie screamed, her fragile mind not understanding.

A glare from Echo finally got her quiet. The four of them reentered the dining room, where almost everyone else was sitting.

"What the fuck happened?" V demanded as they all sat down at took their pick of the remaining food items.

"Echo altered time." Gracie said simply.

"What?"

Echo headdesked. "Fuck it. Just eat, no more questions." She was in a bad mood right then.

Dinner continued in silence. Any attempt at conversation would die down almost instantly.

Whateva stood up. "TV." She said curtly, and left.

"...The fuck?"

Some were confused by this, but others ate quickly and left to follow Whateva to the living room. The other pets, left with a less than pleasant Echo, also finished their dinner in a hurry to leave.

"So much for cooking for all you ungrateful shits," Echo muttered.

"YEAH! MY FAVORITE TV SHOW IS ON!" Whateva shouted.

"Crap. Not again." Sammi grimaced.

Some pets decided to watch with Whateva, others decided to start a game of Twister instead. Echo was still annoyed at the dining room table, and Will's whereabouts were still unknown.

"DID YOU SEE THAT?" Whateva asked excitedly. She was obsessed with this show.

"Yes." Sammi said, annoyed.

The doorbell rang. Echo, being the only one who wasn't occupied, was the one to answer it.

It was Will. "Well, the party things are done," was her way of greeting. "Oh, and these guys got lost on the way here."

Echo let her in. Will was followed by several humans, and one talking towel.

Whateva turned her head. "Who the fuck are they?" She quickly drew her eyes back to the TV.

"I told you I was expecting people," Echo answered vaguely.

The towel took out a joint and inhaled. "Wanna get high?"

"No, Towlie," Echo replied.

Belle took the joint from him, and smoked it.

Soon the entire room was clouded in smoke.

A blond in black leather coughed a few times. "This is even worse than Matt," he grumbled.

A fat boy in a red jacket tugged at Echo's arm. "You said there'd be cookies!" he whined.

Another boy in a green hat rolled his eyes. "Shut up, fatass."

Belle grinned, noticing their discomfort, and pulled out another joint. And smoked two at once.

"I smoked two joints in the morning, I smoked two joints at night," Towlie began singing.

"Towlie, shut up. Cartman, I'll get you the damn cookies. Kyle-" She cut herself off, remembering that Kyle hadn't done anything to annoy her yet. "Hi Kyle."

A brunet wearing goggles sat down next to Whateva on the couch, playing a game on his DS.

Soon, the entire house was flooded in smoke.

Belle suddenly choked, she coughed and gasped. Lahetta grinned, watching with amusement. "Karma is a bitch."

A man with black hair and red eyes slapped her on the back until she began breathing again. As Belle choked out a thank you, he grinned and said, "It wasn't your time yet."

A boy in an orange parka opened up a window to let the place air out. He was prone to dying, and he wanted to be able to at least see what would kill him when it inevitably happened. Poor Kenny...

Echo left the room and came back in with a plate of cookies (which Cartman snatched), a slice of cake which she gave to a pale man who sat in a crouch, a jar of strawberry jam which she gave to the guy who helped out Belle, chocolate for the guy in leather, and laid out other snacks for the others who had no particular preference.

Belle nibbled at the cracker she had picked up, her throat still aching._ Never touching another joint in my life... at least for a week. _

Cute smiled, giggling. She had gotten a picture of Belle choking on a joint, and planned to post it.

V rolled her eyes at Cute. "Are you really that bored?"

"Entirely." Cute went to her room.

A young man with light brown hair picked up a potato chip and ate it. Echo, understanding the joke, snickered slightly.

Matt, who had decided that the air was clear enough, paused his game and lit up a cigarette. Towlie had moved on to his crack, Kyle and Stan were trying to get the cookie plate away from Cartman, Mello was trying to avoid Kelly, and Near was making a house of cards.

"Hi!" Kelly squealed.

Alsa watched in amusement as Kelly practically backed Mello into a corner.

Mello, not wanting to go through the whole cling-and-attach thing that had happened when they first met, dodged the Peophin and sat down next to Matt on the far end of the couch.

"TIMMEH!" yelled a boy in a wheelchair.

"Hello Timmy," Echo replied.

Sammi was too busy daydreaming to notice anybody.

Everyone was talking or screaming. The noise became so loud that Echo took out her air horn and blasted it. Several people jumped, and a few screamed.

Echo threw the air horn to the side and clapped her hands together. "Well, it's nice to see you all again," she greeted the people from South Park and Death Note. "So, this is the new place."

"It was tough enough to find," Mello said with annoyance. "Dimension-jumping is a bitch." Several others murmured agreement.

"Hey, at least you didn't have to travel with Cartman," Kyle said, looking at the fat boy with disgust.

"What happened?" Kelly asked, tilting her head.

"Maybe Hell froze over." Gracie suggested.

"It hasn't happened yet, but it's only a matter of time," Stan said with a sigh.

"Mmph mm mmph mmph mm," Kenny explained.

"Kenny!" Kyle exclaimed, "That's disgusting! I didn't know he did _that_!"

"Bad Kenneh!" Cartman yelled, hitting Kenny with a stick.

"Cartman, control yourself!" Echo warned.

L, the guy with the cake and sitting in a crouch, tilted his head to one side and bit a fingernail. "Curious..."

Gracie turned to L. "Hey! Do you know what is_ in _a fingernail? ...I don't."

"What'd he do?" Whateva asked, slowly pulling out a video camera.

"Mmph mm mmph mmph mm," Kenny explained again, making Kyle wrinkle his nose with disgust and Stan pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

L looked over at Gracie. "Fingernails are composed of keratin, which is also a component of our hair and the outer layer of our skin," he told Gracie in a simple manner of speaking, even though the words were beyond her understanding.

That left Gracie really confused, and onto her phone for an online dictionary to look up all those words.

Whateva grinned. "I can't believe it."

"TIMMEH!" Timmy yelled again.

BB opened his jar of jam, stuck his fingers into it, and ate it in said manner.

"What are you _doing_?" Elva asked him curiously.

"Eating." Belle said bluntly, smirking.

"Oh, haha." Elva said sarcastically.

"No, she's right," BB said before licking his fingers.

"That's how he eats," Echo explained.

The floor split open, revealing a firey pit below. From this pit rose a boy with black hair, wearing all black. The floor closed beneath him.

"Hi Damien," the South Park gang minus Timmy and Towlie said.

"Wow." Belle muttered, impressed.

Gracie looked up from her phone. "Ha! I told you Hell froze over!"

Damien narrowed his creepy eyes. "It did not!" he yelled and sent a fire blast in Gracie's direction which missed her by an inch.

Everyone stared at Damien, who in turn glared at everyone.

"Damien's the Anti-Christ," Stan explained.

"Oh," Everyone said.

Gracie ran up to her room, terrified.

Belle was grinning.

Will laughed. "Our home life is ridiculous," she said gleefully.

"When did you get here?" Alivia jumped, startled.

Will stared at her. "I got here when they got here," she replied slowly. Perhaps Alivia wasn't paying much attention?

Alivia jumped again. "When did_ they_ get here?"

"Flame dude came up from Hell," BB said, nodding at Damien. "The rest of us used the front door a little while ago."

"That's so... anti-climatic." Alivia was bored.

"So, how's Hell?" Belle asked, to nobody in particular.

"Why don't you _go to Hell_ and find out." Whateva snapped.

"I think that could be arranged," Cartman said, looking at Damien. Damien scowled.

"Mmph mmm mm mmph, mmph, mph, mmmmph mph mph mmm mmmph," Kenny said, explaining one of his more recent visits to Hell.

"No way!" Belle exclaimed. She was creepy like that.

"You can understand him?" Alivia questioned.

"Well... yeah," Belle replied.

"Why, can't you?" Kyle asked.

"Okay, who here actually understands this kid?" Alivia asked. The majority of people raised their hand.

"And I thought Gracie was the stupid one." Belle smiled wickedly.

"B-but-" Alivia was totally mindfucked.

"Mmph mmm mmmph mmm mm mph mph," Kenny consoled Alivia.

"Foolish mortals!" Damien snarled suddenly. "You shall all perish and be pulled to burn in Hell for eternity!"

Light shook his head. "Not necessarily. The Death Note says that all humans will go to MU when they die."

"That's true," Echo mumbled, pulling out the black notebook and opening it to the front cover.

"Do we have to bring death philosophy into everything?" Cartman whined.

"Philosophie?" Alivia really _is_ stupid.

And here we thought Gracie was the stupid one...

Before L or Light or Mello or anyone else could give a long and confusing definition for the word 'philosophy', Fire spoke up. "So, we're in a new school now," she announced to everyone in general, hoping to steer the conversation away from Alivia's simple-mindedness.

"With whiny, scantily clad bitches." Belle added.

"No they're not!" Alivia protested.

"You're one of them now."

V slid away from Alivia, looking at her in distaste. Cute went next to Alivia and glared at Belle and V.

"So? Aren't there stupid whorey bitches in every school?" Echo sounded disinterested.

"Everyone is evil. Pure evil." Whateva muttered.

"...Uh, what?" Cute updated her blog._ Whateva sure is pissy today. _

As per usual, the conversation went absolutely nowhere for a very long time, until all the South Park and Death Note people had to get back to their dimensions. Sammi invited them to her party, hoping that her old friends and potential new friends could meet some interesting people.

Meanwhile, at a rather perfect-looking mansion...

"I can do this! I can do this!" Alison was practicing for the play, hoping she'll get the lead role. Which, of course, it's obvious that she will, but Alison is unaware of her illogical perfection.

"Alison!" an Uni maid walked in, and was immediately bedazzled by Alison's statuesque figure and radiant beauty.

"Oh, my dear Maria," Alison expressed to her maid, "whatever shall I do? I'm so nervous- Oh!" Alison broke off, embarrassed and a light blush appeared on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, I interrupted you!"

"It's alright, miss. Oh, look at this room!" The lovely room was crowded with expensive clothes thrown around and scented candles knocked off the shelves.

"I'm very sorry, I wasn't aware of what I was doing." Alison apologized, embarrassed.

"It's my pleasure to help clean up," Maria consoled her. "After all, it is my job." And so the maid set off to clean Alison's room, while the Peophin practiced her monologue over and over again.

As she practiced the lines over and over again, she saw a shadow pass by her curtained window. _I wonder what that was..._

Brushing it off, she continued with her speech. But then another shadow went past her window. Alison started to get nervous. "Maria, I think someone is outside." "I'm sure it's just your parents, dear." Maria answered, still cleaning.

Alison, reassured by her maid's comment, went right back to practicing. But then more and more shadows went past her window, and she became frightened. "Maria, there's someone out there!" Alison shrieked, this was the scariest thing to ever happen to her.

"It's probably just the wind, Alison." Maria replied patiently.

"No, Maria, I think it's..." Alison paused dramatically. "Yes?" Maria patiently replied.

"HATERS!" Alison shrieked as many neopets crashed through her window. A black-haired girl, of about 13, smirked. "Hey, Maria. How's being a servant of Little Miss Perfect working out?"

Maria, in her terror, fled from the room.

"I don't understand," Alison said in confusion, the perfect picture of innocence. "Little Miss Perfect? Is that me?" "No, it's the floorboards," the girl snapped sarcastically.

Nobody had ever spoken to Alison like that before, it worried her. "Nobody is perfect, everyone has flaws."

"Now she's modest," came a jeer from the back of the group. It was accompanied by a lot of cries of agreement and hissing to Alison. Alison began to cry, as her feelings were hurt. "Please," she sobbed, "just tell me what you want from me."

"I've never done anything to you!" Alison sobbed, face in her hands. "Awww, did we upset little Ally?" somebody snarked.

"What do you want?" Alison cried. "Forfeit the play." This came from the girl who originally spoke to Alison, a shadow Shoyru. "But... But it's my dream!" Alison gasped. Someone in the back groaned. "I can't stand her!"

"I just can't forfeit- I won't! I've worked hard for it!" Alison shrieked, shaking her head. "For-feit! For-feit! For-feit!" the group began chanting in unison.

Something in Alison snapped. "NO! I WILL NOT! GET OUT OF HERE, NOW!" she screamed. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY! GET OUT!" The Shoyru smirked and walked up to the now raging Peophin. "We're already making progress," she said quietly. "You have three days, or your little play will go up in flames." And with that, the group silently slunk out of Alison's room.

Alison knew that she needed help, but from who... Maybe V or Lahetta could help her, they were great with those things, at least that's what she heard. But what scared her the most, more than the people who barged into her room and threatened her, was how she had reacted. What had she done?


	4. The Good, the Bad, the Weird

6:59, everything was quiet, peaceful. Birds were quietly singing their songs, melodies soothing and inspiring to the ear of the beholder.

7:00, the sound of about twenty alarm clocks going off simultaneously disrupted any illusion of "peace", "quiet" or "tranquility".

7:05, the sounds of many females screaming at each other made even the birds give up and fly away. Maybe people elsewhere would appreciate their songs...

7:12, the sounds of screaming intensified as the seconds ticked on.

By 7:15, everything had calmed down as much as it would get, and everyone sat down to a breakfast of milk, cereal and apple slices.

Shadow eagerly munched on a slice, and added the apple to her cereal. Will, disinterested and semi-apathetic as usual, drained her milk and lazed about on her chair. Echo and Whateva were whispering to each other. Whateva muttered something, and Echo laughed, stopped abruptly and whispered a reply.

Gracie was being carried in by Sammi. "Uh, guys? She won't wake up."

"She looks drugged." Tawni observed, nibbling on an apple slice.

"LAHETTA!"

"What?" the half-awake Acara grumbled, staggering into the dining room and moodily poking at her cereal.

"Did you drug Gracie?" Cloud asked in a disapproving, motherly tone.

Lahetta immediately looked up. "No, ma'am." she mumbled, head falling in her cereal bowl.

"Maybe it was V." Whateva suggested.

Before V could make a smartass reply, Echo suggested, "Isn't it more likely that she accidentally drugged herself?"

A hush fell over the room as this registered. "That wouldn't surprise me," Fire commented.

"Not even _Gracie_ is that stupid." Alsa stated.

"Stupider shit has gone down." Belle said, as she walked into the room. As if on cue, Lahetta's cereal had fallen down, the Cloud Acara going with it.

Echo's eyes flashed. "Looks like someone got Lahetta, too."

Will sat up in her chair and smiled. _Finally, something interesting..._

"I'm not cleaning that up." Whateva said, leaving the room.

Belle blinked rapidly, her vision going blurry. "...Oh..." the Yellow Shoyru collapsed.

"...Damn." Alsa rolled her eyes.

Will was leaning forward in her seat now, hands pressed down on the table, watching with unconcealed delight at the druggings.

Echo looked at her food curiously, but shook her head. "It can't be the food," she mused aloud. "Gracie didn't eat before she fainted..."

Sammi was next. "I feel high..." She fainted, falling out of her chair.

Fire sat next to Echo. "Lets see, what could administer the drug to everyone? And what the hell is the drug, anyways?"

"Whatever it is, it has the effects of chloroform, or maybe anesthetic. Sleeping gas?" Echo returned. Shadow blinked. It was always weird when Echo and Fire switched to their more serious, smart selves. Will just kept the smile on her face, looking from Sammi to Echo to Fire. This was the most entertainment she had had in a while.

Alivia felt fuzzy. "Help. I feel..." she leapt up, spun around, and face-walled. Whateva poked her head back in, saw Alivia, and looked away.

"If it is sleeping gas, everyone should be affected. Well... except Will, but she might also be affected," Fire reasoned.

Echo's eyes lit up. "Maybe the person drugged us all, including themself, so everyone would pass out and there'd be no evidence!"

"But what would they gain from it?" Lily asked, joining in the conversation.

"The sick satisfaction of it all." Cute mused.

"Wait... The drug is in the apples... But what about Gracie?" Lily was having one of her geek moments.

Echo's eyes narrowed. "And how do you know that it's the apples?" she asked softly.

"...Shit!" Lily ran to her room.

"Well, there goes our druggie," Fire noted.

"At least one of the druggies," Echo corrected. "It might be a collaborative effort. But now we need to know how to wake up all these people..."

Shadow fainted, having also eaten some apple. "And what about Gracie and Lahetta?" Fire wondered. "Neither of them ate the apple, so how-" Fire's question was cut off by Echo fainting.

Whateva poked her head back in. "Would you all shut up? I can't hear the TV-"

That's when Cloud had an idea. "ALSA!"

The Ixi in question was nowhere to be found. "She's in the refrigerator, in case any of you were wondering," Will said, her scary smile still plastered across her face. Everyone who wasn't knocked out jumped up and ran to the fridge.

Alsa jumped out when the refrigerator door opened, running to her room. "You'll never catch me!"

"Is she on crack?" Gracie questioned, having woke up a few seconds ago.

Pie sighed softly. "If only time-skips existed. Then we could all just be back to normal and at school."

"But then we wouldn't solve the mystery!" Elva complained.

"What are we, fucking Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Gang?" V snarled.

"Oooh, I wanna be Velma!" Gracie squealed excitedly. V facepalmed, she hadn't meant that literally.

"Anyone else in favour of a time-skip?" Pie asked. Several people raised their hands. Will, knowing that they meant her, cracked her knuckles and nodded her head. The next thing they knew, they were all wide awake and at Neoschool.

* * *

><p>Belle jumped. <em>What the hell just happened?<em> Then the memories came flooding back. Right, she had been drugged and now, by the looks of it, there was a time skip. The bell rang, and the crack group of sixteen plus three trudged reluctantly to class.

"And so, as you can see, the constellations..." Altador rambled on, scratching the chalk against the blackboard so that it made a horrible, quiet squeaking noise. The next thing anyone knew, a student from the lower grade knocked on the door. Altador opened, the student handed him a note and left without a word. Altador looked over it and seemed saddened. "Fire, V, Alivia, Alsa, and Belle? Your presence is requested in the principal's office. Something about a medical emergency."

After a rather loud string of curses later, they all stood in front of the door, afraid to open it. V, however... "What the fuck? Lets move our asses!" and pushed the door open. The rest of the group were already in the office.

The principal was an earth faerie with vines braided into her hair, and a solemn expression. "I'm afraid I have some bad news," she said softly.

Belle swore. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know that-"

"What did you do?" Alsa questioned.

The principal appeared confused. "No, this is in regards to one of your owners," she clarified.

"Oh," Belle sighed relieved. Then she tensed up. "What happened?"

"Whateva was in an accident. Something along the lines of..." She took out a paper and unfolded it, pushing her glasses further up her nose. "Getting into a fight with a giant doughnut, punching the TV by accident and getting electrocuted," she dictated. She put the paper down and finished with, "She's in the hospital. Echo will pick you all up in a few minutes.

Alsa facepalmed, that was so stupid. V and Belle were pleased, skipping school without a punishment... However, many pets were distraught. Their owner was in a hospital.

"Electrocution can kill you," Lily decided to remind everybody.

"Shut up." Belle hissed, she was worried.

"Sorry..."

Even Will seemed disturbed. This made the mood even more unsettling.

Waiting was a nightmare. All nineteen of them were standing nervously outside, waiting for a sing of that strange bus-car that Echo drove. When it finally pulled up into the school parking lot, they all rushed to the door. Echo was immediately crowded with questions about the other owner. "Just get in," she said gruffly. All the pets clambered onto the seats while Echo closed the doors and pulled away from the school. For a few moments it was quiet. Then Echo said, "Alright, we're out of range. You can get out of hiding, now."

"Excuse me?" Gracie questioned. "...TIME WARP!"

"The fuck is she talking about?" Whateva demanded, crawling out from underneath a blanket draped over one of the seats in the back.

"Fuck it if I know," Echo replied, keeping her eyes on the road.

Realization dawned on the Wocky. "Oh..."

Almost all of the pets were staring with wide-eyed incredulity at Whateva, whom they thought was in the hospital. "They look bug-eyed," Echo joked, looking at them all through the rearview mirror.

Belle's not so known temper broke out. "WHAT THE HELL? YOU COULD HAVE FUCKING TOLD US!"

"Your reactions wouldn't have seemed genuine," Echo replied indifferently. "Still, we need your help right now."

"For what?" Fire demanded angrily.

"There's this new video game..." Whateva started.

"YOU BITCHES!" V roared.

"...And we need you to help us get it," Whateva finished.

"No way!"

"Hell no!"

"Eww."

"Screw you!" And swearing soon followed.

"Shut up, _shut up_, SHUT UP!" Echo roared. "We busted you out of that hell hole, and now you're all gonna help us, got it?"

"Not a chance in hell." V glared. "I don't fucking care."

Although the pets were still reasonably angry, they didn't want to go back to Neoschool. "Fine," Belle muttered grudgingly.

"Awesome." Echo made a scary grin and put her attention back on the road.

During the drive, V was planning revenge on her owners, Lily was muttering about how stupid video games were, and Alivia was thinking. Having an thought, she voiced it aloud. "What if it's sold out?"

"Whateva, explain Plan B. I'm driving," Echo said.

Whateva took out a blueprint chart with lots of complicated looking maneuvers. "Okay dipshits, listen up because I don't want to say this again. Plan A is simple, we charge the line and get in place. Plan B is what happens when it's sold out, also known as Operation Heist."

"Wait, heist as in-" Lily was cut off short.

"We break into the storage rooms," Whateva announced smugly. "Failing that, Plan B has another side to it. We split into groups. Some go into the storage rooms, the other follows some obviously rich and stuck-up kid who can get another copy, and take it from him if the other group didn't get it from the storage room."

"Are you crazy?! That's so illegal!" Lily exclaimed.

V and Lahetta rolled their eyes simultaneously. Belle giggled. Actually giggled. "If Plan B fails, what's Plan C?" she questioned.

Whateva's grin faded. "We use Will," she said solemnly, and everyone went quiet.

"But Plan B shouldn't fail," Echo said strongly from the front, sounding like she was forcing it to happen. "Plan C is our completely desperate fail-safe."

"Don't be so sure of that." Cute grinned deviously. She loved trouble, it was great for her blog.

"What's so horrible about using Will?" Belle asked emotionlessly. Alsa nudged her sharply.

Will turned slowly, very slowly, to face Belle. Her grey eyes seemed to suck the life out of everything around her. Her fur looked like it was glowing. She looked supernatural, and deadly serious. Then Will said, "Fuck it if I know," and the effect was lost.

Belle's expression was still as blank as ever. "What is with you people?" and said nothing more about it.

Whateva's patience was running thin. "Are we almost there yet?!"

"No."

"How about now?"

"Nope."

"Now?"

"Nu-uh."

A brief silence. "Now?"

"Look out the window. You will see a highway. What do you think?" Echo's sarcasm was evident.

Whateva thought about just jumping out and ending it all, she was so bored.

Pie suddenly grinned. "Hey, Gracie?"

"Yeah?"

"Somebody said that you sound like a Weewoo." She bit back her laughter.

Gracie blinked stupidly. "What's a Weewoo?"

Echo did another facepalm to the steering wheel, and the bus/car swerved and honked simultaneously.

Whateva had been knocked out by her own seat, and was now dangerously close to falling on the other brunette. Gracie was confused. "Somebody tell me what a Weewoo is!"

Belle leaned over and whispered something in her sister's ear. Gracie's eyes widened, and Belle held back her laughter with a grin.

Fire glanced over at Will who had her default bored expression on her face. "Hey Will," she whispered.

The Wocky nodded.

"Mind hurrying this up a little?"

"And we're here!" Echo announced up front.

Fire's mouth hung open slightly. "That was faster than I-"

"I didn't do anything," Will said, just as surprised.

Gracie excitedly opened the door, sending Whateva crashing on to the hard ground, jolting her awake. "WHO THE HELL DID THAT?!" she glared at everybody murderously.

Gracie squeaked and ran in to the store, with Whateva chasing after her.

The pets just blinked and exited the bus/car.

* * *

><p>So after Plans A and B had been sufficiently memorised, the pets took their positions around the perimeter of the store. Echo took out a walkie-talkie. "Crack team of sixteen plus three, this is Ivy speaking. Are you all in position? Over."<p>

Whateva responded. "Yes. This is Mara speaking. Over."

"Dark in position." Shadow spoke.

V took our her walkie-talkie. "Vandetta speaking. Our names are stupid. Over."

Belle smirked as she gave her reply. "Miss Murder here. Vandetta needs to get a sense of humour. I'm in position. Over."

"Inferno talking. I'm next to the entrance. Over," Fire spoke.

"Glitz here. My hair is messed up! Over." Alivia spoke. "Wait. Miss Murder? You better not be planning anything... Over."

"Glam here. Yeah. Over." Cute wasn't paying much attention.

"The Shark is holding back as planned. Over," Will muttered.

"Mara talking. What the hell is The Shark? Over."

"Me," Will muttered dryly. "Over."

"Vandetta here. The Shark is holding back what?" V snickered. "Over."

"Punches to the faces of people I don't like. That can change quickly. Over."

"She's holding back as in staying away from the store. Remember? She's Plan C. Over," Echo explained.

V glared at the walkie-talkie, as if it had done something to upset her.

"Spice speaking. Let's do this thing!." Lahetta squealed excitedly. "Over."

"Steel here. Why do we have nicknames? Over," Alsa asked.

"Rush speaking. Because Ivy's paranoid. Over," Dusty replied.

"Gracie talking. Dusty, who's Ivy? Over." Gracie spoke. Some of them could hardly contain their laughter. Others, their annoyance.

"My name is Rush, Ivy is... uh... the girl who drove us here, and you're supposed to be Chance," Dusty hastily tried to cover up Gracie's mess-up before Echo got angry and maimed something. "Over."

"When did you change your name, Dusty? I'm confused. Over," Gracie replied.

"Miss Murder here. What else is new? Over."

"Belle! Tell me when we changed our names! Gracie, over." She just couldn't take a hint.

"Mara speaking. You people are hilarious. Over."

"WHO IS MARA? TIME WARP! OVER!"

"Karma here. Lets just ignore Chance, okay? Over," Tawni spoke.

"Blast speaking. I agree. Over," Sun said.

"Sugar in place. Seconded," Cloud agreed.

Gracie was silent, her feelings were hurt. "...Over."

"Miss Murder talking. We've wasted time. Over."

After Quantum (Kelly), Divide (Elva), Cookie (Pie), Queen (Lily) and Switch (Sammi) all checked in, Plan A was set into motion.

Just like they were hoping it wouldn't be, it was. The game was sold out.

"Miss Murder here. I want to live up to my alias now. Over." Belle said, annoyed.

"Hold back, Miss Murder," Echo instructed, ignoring the snickering from V. "Groups Alpha, Beta and Gamma, Plan B is in motion. Find a good target and report back. Over."

"Who is in the groups? Echo?" Gracie questioned.

"Spice speaking. Our cover is nearly fucked. Over."

"Someone take away Chance's walkie-talkie and stay with her. Over," a clearly irritated Echo instructed.

"Quantum here. Roger that, over," Kelly replied and went over to her sister.

Gracie frowned as Kelly took her walkie-talkie and stepped on it. "Mission completed, ma'am. Over."

"Cookie talking. This isn't the army. Over." Pie spoke.

"Vandetta speaking. Who the fuck is Coo- Wait, Pie?" V broke out in to laughter.

"We really should be keeping our identities secret," Shadow reminded them a little timidly. She wasn't used to authority. Then she remembered that she forgot to close her sentence and quickly said, "Over."

"Copy that, Dark. Team Alpha, are you all ready? Over," Echo took over.

"Our cover is already fucked." Whateva reminded them. "Over."

"Yeah. O-v-e-r."

Team Alpha was made up of Lahetta, Fire, Cloud, Dusty, Tawni and Pie. They were all trying to remain unseen by their target, which was some rich, stuck-up looking Aisha who was complaining about anything and everything to her submissive parents.

"Team Beta, are you ready? Over," Echo checked on the second team.

"Yes. We're ready. Over." Lily confirmed.

"Wait a second. Is that Layla?" A shocked Alivia spoke. "What is she doing _here_? Over."

"Glam here. This is so going on my blog. Over."

"Glitz and Glam, pay attention to the mission or you're cooking your own food tonight," Echo threatened. "Over."

Team Beta was Lily, Alivia, Cute, Shadow, and Kelly who was more or less babysitting Gracie.

"I can handle myself. Over." Gracie insisted.

"You keep blowing our cover. Over." Kelly responded.

"I can, too! Echo! Over!" Gracie shrieked.

"FOCUS BEFORE I SMACK YOU ALL ACROSS THE FACE WITH A MONGOOSE! OVER!"

Team Beta needed to stalk some Bruce who just went to every game rack and piled them all in his cart without looking remotely interested.

"Why a mongoose? A seal is better. Over." Whateva stated.

"I hate those kind of people. Over." Belle glared at him in disgust.

"Who don't you hate, Miss Murder? Over." Sammi spoke.

"You'd be surprised. Over."

"Focus, guys. I do not want to be smacked with a mongoose. Over." Tawni reminded them.

"Team Gamma? Please tell me that you're not falling apart at the seams like the others. Over."

Team Gamma was the rest of the pets, minus Will, and they had to follow AAA and Abigail. They couldn't resist pranking the self-proclaimed Games Master.

"Blast here. Nah, we're mostly fine. Over." Sun informed.

"Miss Murder talking. This is going to be fucking hilarious. Over."

Echo put down her walkie-talkie and ran her fingers through her hair. "Please please please don't make us resort to Plan C," she whispered.

"I still don't understand what's so horrific about using Will. Over." Belle somehow had managed to have heard that.

"Steel speaking. You moron. Over."

"FUCKING GET THIS OVER WITH! I'M GETTING BORED! FUCKING OVER!" Whateva hissed.

"This is Inferno from Team Alpha," Fire called in. "We are approaching the target's bag. We just need to find out which one of us is the stealthier. Over."

"Cookie here. I am. How do you think I got both my nickname and alias? Over."

"Spice talking. Because you had a pastry obsession when you were six. Over."

"Crap. That too." Pie mentally slapped herself. "How did you remember that? Let's do this shit! Ready? Over."

Pie slipped around the corner separating her from her target, and tiptoed across the floor, trying to look as natural as possible. Managing to do so, she prepared herself for what she was about to do, and neared closer. What she had not prepared for, was to be stopped by an employee.

"Miss? What are you doing?"

Pie blinked in surprise. Time for her escape plan. She started humming and spinning in a circle, then dropped down on all-fours and began crawling while reciting the alphabet backwards. The employee stared at her in disbelief.

Then Dusty and Tawni came over. Dusty apologised to the employee - "Sorry, she forgot her meds today." - while Tawni picked Pie up off of the floor and led her away.

"This is Sugar," Cloud reported back. "Mission failed. Over."

"Crap." Was all the response that Cloud got. Their mission wasn't going too well...

"We still have Teams Beta and Gamma," Echo said to Whateva, trying to calm herself down.

"This is Glitz. Yeah, don't worry guys. We got this! Over."

Somehow, that wasn't very comforting.

When Alivia called back two minutes later with a curt, "He had a cane. Over," Team Gamma was their penultimate hope.

"Go to the car! I repeat, go to the car! This is urgent. Divide out. Over."

And that hope was lost. Soon, the bus/car was filled with the crack group of sixteen plus two.

"What happened?" Echo asked Elva.

Much to everybody's shock, Elva held up three copies of the game with a grin. "Am I awesome, or what?"

Echo and Whateva's jaws opened in surprise. Then a grin appeared on Echo's face and she let out a whoop. They had three copies of _Derping Around the World_, and the best part was that they didn't have to resort to Plan C.

"How did you do it?!" Lahetta questioned.

"A magician never reveals her secrets."

"You're not a magician." Gracie stated.

"Who cares? Let's just go home," Will said, stretching out her legs on her seat.

"When did you get here?"

"Who knows?"

"She defies logic. Nothing makes sense here." Whateva reminded them.

And so the crack team of sixteen plus three plus owners headed back home in the bus/car with their three copies of the video game. Once they got back to the house, it was already getting late.

So they filed out one by one, just wanting to get food and go to bed. But as Belle was about to step off, Echo stopped her. "Hey, remember what you asked before? About what was so bad about using Will?"

"Of course I do. Mind telling me?" Belle wasn't normally semi-polite, but she was actually concerned about this.

"Every time we use Will's ability for our own personal gain... Every time we use Will's abilities for our own gain, that means we force her to do something so she can defy logic and get us what we want, the Pant Devil steals something from an already poor family."

Belle frowned. "Oh... Damn." as Belle began to walk away, she looked at Echo over her shoulder. "By the way, Whateva is spying on us."

"Damn!" a muffled voice hissed.

Echo grinned. "Getting protective of our pets, are we?" she taunted the empty air around her. Her only response was the sound of feet running, and getting quieter.

Echo jumped out of the bus/car, stretched her arms up to the sky and yawned. "Crap, I still gotta make dinner for those guys," she realized. "Then again, I don't want the house to be set on fire."

The house was nearly set on fire, anyway. It was quickly put out.

**(Alivia- Glitz**  
><strong>Cute- Glam<strong>  
><strong>Fire- Inferno<strong>  
><strong>Shadow- Dark<strong>  
><strong>Tawni- Karma<strong>  
><strong>Will- The Shark<strong>  
><strong>Whateva- Mara<strong>  
><strong>Lahetta- Spice<strong>  
><strong>Sun- Blast<strong>  
><strong>Cloud- Sugar<strong>  
><strong>Kelly- Quantum<strong>  
><strong>Gracie- Chance<strong>  
><strong>Dusty- Rush<strong>  
><strong>Alsa- Steel<strong>  
><strong>Pie- Cookie<strong>  
><strong>Elva- Divide<strong>  
><strong>Lily- Queen<strong>  
><strong>Sammi- Switch<strong>

**Team Alpha:**  
><strong>Lahetta<strong>  
><strong>Fire<strong>  
><strong>Cloud<strong>  
><strong>Dusty<strong>  
><strong>Tawni<strong>  
><strong>Pie<strong>

**Team Beta:**  
><strong>Lily<strong>  
><strong>Alivia<strong>  
><strong>Cute<strong>  
><strong>Shadow<strong>  
><strong>Kelly<strong>  
><strong>Gracie<strong>

**Team Gamma**  
><strong>Everybody else<strong>  
><strong>Excluding Will)<strong>


	5. A Bucket of Blood

Thanks to Halloween being just around the corner, the party had to be pushed back a while. Sammi and Alsa were disappointed, but Will assured them that the preparations would remain intact. It was in everyone's best interest to trust her on this one.

Echo was thrilled. She loved Halloween, with all its craziness, tricking, sugar, and autumn. She could go on forever. But one thing she wasn't good at was decorating. Or coming up with a costume idea until the last second. It was a shame, but her pets were determined to whip her into shape.

"You could go as a witch!" Cute insisted.

"Or a princess!" Kelly shouted.

"OMG, that would be just like Rapunzel from Tangled!" Alivia squealed.

Whateva just watched amusedly, she had already thought of her costume idea. And, honestly? This looked hilarious.

Echo shook her head. "Nah. I wanna be something badass."

"Of course you do." Fire rolled her eyes, amused by her owner's predictability. She turned back to the book she'd been reading.

Will, meanwhile, was hammering holes in a wall. No one bothered to ask why or stop her.

Shadow shifted in her seat. "Can we get the pumpkins now?" she asked. She'd been so excited when the others told her that she could plan the look for the faces on the jack-o-lanterns. She made a few plans in advance, and the others all agreed that they looked very good. But Shadow didn't want to be around for the pumpkin carving itself, because of her secret fear of sharp objects.

"What the hell do you consider badass?" Belle demanded. "You fucking planning to go as Freddy Krueger, or something?"

Echo just sat there and thought. "No," she replied seriously. "I'm just considering my options now."

"Guys? Pumpkins?"

"Can we get the candy too?"

"Costume ideas?"

"What are you going as, Whateva?" Kelly suddenly took notice of her owner's presence.

"Guess." The brunette replied.

Will stopped hammering and asked, "Slenderman?"

"No."

"Pinocchio?" Lahetta guessed.

"Lie to me, bro."

"Mulan?" Belle tried.

"No."

"Leo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" Gracie tried.

"No." Whateva was starting to get annoyed.

"Mike from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" Gracie tried again.

"_No_."

"Don from the Teena-"

"I'M NOT GOING AS A BLOODFUCKING TURTLE!"

"Splinter-" Gracie attempted.

"No."

"Sandy Ch-" Pie started.

"No!"

"Misa Amane fr-" Belle questioned.

"NO- Wait. Yes, actually." Whateva sighed, relieved that the guessing was over.

"Wow, you're actually going as a blonde twit?" Lahetta asked mouthily.

"I haven't seen anybody else doing it. I actually think it'll fun." Whateva admitted.

"Actually, Misa's a very popular cosplay option for Death Note fangirls," Echo informed the group.

This statement was met with silence for a while. "Why do you know that?" Dusty asked.

"Once you get sucked into these fandoms, you learn a lot of stuff you don't need or want to know," Echo replied. "So, pumpkins anyone?"

"Hell yeah!" Belle agreed. She loved carving things...

Tawni was a little disturbed by the expression on her sister's face.

"TO THE BUS... CAR THING!" Kelly shouted.

"We should really call it something else," Shadow said as she slid off her seat.

"Like what?" Tawni asked, looking away from Belle with a shudder.

"The Mystery Machine!" Gracie shouted.

"No, that's taken..." Belle informed her, in a seemingly dream-like state; that creepy expression still on her face.

"...The Batmobile!" Gracie obviously wasn't understanding the concept.

"Just name it Cara and get it over with," Sun said with an eye-roll.

"Why Cara?" Pie asked.

"Either that or Carl," Sun said.

"Why?" Pie repeated her question.

"'Cause it has 'car' in the name."

"But what about 'bus'?" Cloud asked.

"Adolf?" Gracie was terrible with names, apparently.

"Nope." Lily dismissed.

"Why?!"

"We would be mistaken for Nazis."

"What's a Nazi?"

"Someone silence Gracie before we all get arrested," Belle suggested.

Will held up a roll of duct-tape.

"Where'd you get that from?" Fire asked.

"Ixi powers," Will replied.

"But you're not an Ixi."

"But there are Ixis in this room."

"Will, did you just use logic?" Lahetta asked.

"Yep." Will seemed unbothered.

"Technically that in itself is illogical," Echo pointed out.

"CAN WE JUST GET TO THE GODDAMN PUMPKIN PATCH ALREADY?"

"But I wanna name the car... bus thing!" Alsa protested.

"I'm sick of this!" Whateva responded.

"Think of names as we go there," Echo said tiredly, aging herself up to twenty-three years. As they all piled up into the bus-car, people gave their opinions.

"It should be something girly but awesome!"

"No, name it after a kind of monster."

"Or a Greek or Roman god!" Whateva and Echo, being descended from said gods, quickly said no to that option. They didn't want to anger their fathers.

"How about Eve?" Gracie suggested.

"Some of us aren't religious." Lily told her sister.

"What's a 'religious'?"

"Name it Asswaffle," Tawni suggested out of nowhere, an immature grin forming on her face.

Everyone stared at her. "Asswaffle?" Lahetta repeated.

"It sounds a little vulgar," Cloud pointed out delicately.

"Why Asswaffle?" Shadow asked.

"Because," Tawni explained, "none of us will like it much, but we won't be able to think up anything better, and the name will stick. Every time we talk about it, we'll think back to the time when we couldn't make a decision on what to name our bus-car." The last part sounded increasingly sarcastic.

"...I don't like that name," Cute huffed.

"_I like that name_." Belle glared at everybody, daring them to disagree.

"Me too!" Alivia squeaked, obviously nervous.

"Same here." Whateva agreed, somehow missing Belle's silent threat to the others.

"All aboard the Asswaffle," Echo said, not even attempting to hide her amusement with this new name. Cute, Alivia and Cloud weren't thrilled with the idea. Gracie, however, still seemed to think that it needed a name.

"Maria?"

"Asswaffle."

"How about Tarzan?"

"Asswaffle."

As they filed in, she just kept saying random names until everyone made a silent agreement to ignore her. Gracie was offended, even though this happened often.

A while after, Pie complained of needing to use a bathroom. Everyone was prepared to ignore that, until Whateva said that she also needed to. Terrified of what the outcome may be if both of them were ignored, everyone began to argue over where the nearest bathroom was.

"I think it's too far away! What shall we do?!" Pie was, which she rarely did, panicking.

Echo was driving as usual, and Gracie's stupid comments combined with everyone panicking had put her in a bad mood. "Just ask one of the resident Ixis to conjure you up some funnels and bottles," she snapped. Of course, she wasn't really expecting them to follow through with her advice to piss in a bottle.

Whateva was prepared to push Echo out, and drive to a park herself. Pie, meanwhile, was ready to break Asswaffle into pieces; occupants included. Gracie, however, looked terrified; everyone was acting horrible.

But then, Will sneezed, and everything turned out fine. No one bothered to wonder why. When they finally got to the pumpkin patch, there were a few squabbles over which pumpkins to get which were quickly resolved, although in a very unorthodox way. Namely, including tin foil, a plastic Negg, and fifteen seconds of unbelievably loud techno music.

Needless to say, it was one of their less crazy outings.

Much later, they had ended up picking one medium-sized pumpkin for each person. Gracie chose a tilted one, go figure. Belle's pumpkin had a sharp stem. Whateva's looked ordinary, but somehow adorable. Lily had a typical-looking one, like expected. Dusty claimed that her pumpkin looked vaguely like a celebrity. Elva had doused hers in glitter.

Needless to say, they still had the carving to do. This will be interesting.

Shadow did her designing once they had gotten back home. Once everyone was satisfied, Will took out a black marker and re-created the designs on each pumpkin. Then, it was up to the ones most adept at using knives (see: Echo, Whateva, Belle...) to do the carving and gutting. The others set about the house, hanging cobwebs and installing bright red lights and even letting a few Haunted Woods-based petpets run free.

Fire lit all the little candles that would be put into the pumpkins. For once, she just decided to go along with her stereotype. Meanwhile Cloud scooped up all the pumpkin innards, which served well as fake guts splatters across the front yard.

"OMG! I have an idea!" Cute suddenly shouted.

"Amuse me." Whateva was already amused, since she got to carve and gut ("One of my favorite pastimes."), she had said, earning a shudder from Tawni) pumpkins. Despite her terror of knives, she was still going for it. Yet, she was in a good enough mood for more amusement.

"We could totally still have Sammi and Alsa's party! And make this place a haunted house! OMG!" she shouted once more. "I've already thought of everything!" and proceeded to shoot her ideas at everybody.

Lily wasn't too fond of this kind of work (Cute had made her in charge of being the "scary tour guide"), and she was definitely letting the others know. She would still continue, as she did not want to ruin the other's fun.

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Lily asked. To her, it seemed like lots of work.

"C'mon, Lilith. Live a little! When you're older, you won't have stories to tell if you keep being such a goody-goody." Belle knew exactly how Lily felt about this, and said it anyway.

Lily whipped around to stare at her sister, but said nothing for a while. She didn't even hiss about Belle calling her 'Lilith'.

Echo, having already silently agreed, was holding everyone to the idea. She'd already gotten a bucket and was splashing red liquid all over the walls.  
>"Echo." Shadow feigned calmness. "What is that?"<p>

"Blood." Such nonchalance. She might as well have said water.

"And where did it come from?" Shadow urged.

"Butcher's." And with that, Shadow relaxed. Echo rolled her eyes. "C'mon Shad, you know how much I hate killing people."

"But you do anyway," Shadow finished the conversation that they'd had several times before. "And don't call me that!"

"Okay. I won't call you 'that'. But I'll still call you Shad." Echo suddenly appeared to be nine years of age, making her the youngest of the group. Shadow shuddered. No nine year old girl should ever have a grin like the one Echo had now.

Will walked by, looked at the blood, poked the wall and continued her walk.

Whateva looked up. She had been distracted by the carving, and had apparently not noticed the walls being drenched in blood. "Why does it smell like raw meat?"

"Use your eyes, genius." Lahetta was not a fan of animal blood, obviously.

Kelly skipped towards them, having been in her room. She stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted the blood. "...I promise not to tell anybody, as long as I'm not the one who has to hide the body."

This caused Lily to do a Facepalm of Doom.

Little Echo rolled her eyes. "Silly Kelly, what person would have that much blood?" She giggled.

Fire shook her head. "Forget a costume. All Echo has to do is be a creepy nine year old."

"OMG, THAT'D BE PERFECT FOR THE PARTY!" Cute gushed.

Cue Lily's Epic Facepalm of Doom #2.

Belle, getting bored, swirled the blood on the wall around with her fingers, making irregular lines and giving it an artistic effect. It managed to be pleasing to the eye as well as downright scary.

"Classy," Fire complemented.

Belle licked her fingers, and flashed a bloody smile at Fire. She then proceeded to get more blood buckets, she was creepy like that.

"Sometimes, I wonder if she's on drugs." Kelly voiced her thoughts.

"But she's just fourteen," Echo said in confusion. "Don't only grown-ups do drugs?" Everyone stared.

"Does she, like, get stupider as she ages down?" Alivia wondered.

"I was thinking that, too." Cute agreed.

"Maybe she keeps drugs in her closet." Kelly wondered.

"Belle or Echo?" Lily questioned.

"Both."

"Holy crap, we should go look." And out came Whateva's creepy smile.

"Nobody is looking in my closet!" Belle snapped without thinking.

"My closet's got landmines," Echo reminded them. "I only got one thing to wear."

"Hey, everyone!" Lily said with a giant, completely fake smile plastered across her face. "How 'bout we get this haunted house thing done?"

Downstairs, Elva was trying to explain to Gracie that paper snowflakes weren't a Halloween decoration.

"But they're so cute!" Gracie protested.

Lahetta was trying to be entertained by their "conversation", but she couldn't concentrate on them. What Belle said, it kept nagging at her. She'd never seen the Shoyru react about something like that. What was she hiding?

"Is everything almost finished? Or do we still have much to do?" Lily still had her fake smile on.

"You're insane if you think that someone took the time to plan everything out," Will commented, causing Lily to jump.

"But... But you left... How did you... Nevermind." Lily shudder.

Will inspected the hallway, then a few of the rooms. Shaking her head, she muttered, "Nowhere near done."

"Fuck." Lily groaned. She hated things like this. It was fun afterwards, but all the planning...

"I've never seen you swear before. I like it." Belle commented. Looking around, she was satisfied by how bloody everything was.

Shadow sighed. _Someone's got to do it..._"Okay everyone, here's a plan."

* * *

><p>"Awesome."<p>

That one word breathed by an excited Pie summed up what everyone was thinking very well. They'd all managed to get the house done, and it was _a goddamn fucking masterpiece_, in the words of Lahetta.

"I actually like this." Lily realized, in awe.

"We are totally taking pictures!" Whateva squealed.

"This was so worth it!" Alivia grinned.

"Guys... The party isn't until tomorrow," Dusty pointed out.

"And?" Sun was still beaming up at the house.

"We have to sleep in there."

A silence. Then: "Craaaaaaaaaap."

* * *

><p>By nightfall, Lahetta was tossing and turning in her bed. This disturbed her roommate's sleep.<p>

"What the?! What's that noise?"

"Sorry, I can't sleep..."

"Are you okay?"

"Bitch, just go back to sleep..."

"I can't if you keep talking..."

"...Fuck it," Lahetta groaned as she got out of bed.

Pacing outside her room, she couldn't get what had happened earlier with Belle acting all secretive about her closet. Just what exactly could be so bad that even _Belle_ felt like it had to be hidden? Was Belle secretly an undercover agent and she kept her equipment hidden in her closet? Was she secretly a pervert and stashed dirty things away? Was she a mass murderer who kept the bodies hidden in her own room?

Lahetta disregarded that last one. Belle wouldn't hide something like that from them. Actually, she would flaunt it in front of them for all it was worth. She could already imagine Belle chasing Cloud around with a severed arm in her grasp. Then what?

_I'll just have to find out..._

She had to be extremely careful. One wrong move, and her photo could be on a 'Missing!' poster. Walking quietly, she pressed her ear against Belle's door. Hearing nothing, she slowly opened the door, mentally swearing as it creaked. Luckily, Belle appeared to still be asleep. Lahetta tiptoed across the room, thankfully managing to be quiet. Eyes scanning the walls, she quickly located Belle's closet and inched toward it.

A hand outstretched. A doorknob turned. A quiet gasp. An Acara girl stared at the sight before her.

Blood. It was everywhere, adorning everything except for her clothes. Tools of torture, packets of blood, bloody fingernails, scratch marks decorating the walls. Lahetta's eyes scaled the closet, horrified. There appeared to be something hidden under her clothes, the ends of Lahetta's mouth quirked as she pulled the artwork out and gazed at it. So, her little sister was an artist? Quickly, her mood darkened again as she heard footsteps and the sound of the closet door closing.

"Found something you like?" came a sarcastic whisper. "Sorry, no sale."

Lahetta shut her eyes tight. "Belle," she began, wanting to say something to calm her sister down, but she wasn't able to think of anything else. She opened her eyes again and looked around.

Her sister was there, dark eyes narrowed and a frown on her rather stunning face. Black and red hairs fell every which way around her head and shoulders, and even straight up, making her seem taller than usual. Her arms were crossed, stretching out her shoulders, giving her a more broad look that made her seem very strong and tough.

Femme fatale. A deadly beauty. Lahetta feared for her life... until she realised that Belle wouldn't hurt her. Not now, at least. Belle lived off of fear, like it was a drug. The blood and guts were just for effect. No, if the victim didn't show fear, Belle got nothing out of it.

So Lahetta smiled childishly at her sister and said, "Couldn't reach a spot on my back. Wanted to see if I could use one of those arms to help out with it. It really itched, you know." A pause for a light, calm laugh. "Nice picture by the way. Considered the Art Gallery?"  
>Belle opened her mouth to answer, but Lahetta beat her to the punch. "Well, it's late isn't it? I'd best be getting to bed. Nighty night." With that, the Acara walked out of Belle's room and closed the door behind her without so much as a scratch on her.<p> 


End file.
